2011

So Much Snow, Godrevy, Piracy, Lost Best Couple Titles, Miss Merthyr, Barry Island, Bristol Zoo and it's Lack of Giraffes, Robin Hood, Getting Stuck in a Student Occupation, Oakwood - didn't someone die there?, Together, Leaving Cardiff, Clueless, Not Falling Over at Graduation, Job Hunting, Temping, Joe Jonas, T-T-T-Tasha A, Missing Trains, Spontaneous Guillemots, Date Nights, Eurovision Cakes, I Love Belarus, Wine and Drag Queen Movie Nights, Sneaky Thieving Penguins, Seven Sistas, Sisters With a Z, Waking Up in Henry's Bed, Red Vines, Red Suits, It's Britney Bitch, Shopping by Candlelight, Mini Warblers, Photos with Diana, Leather Museum, Baby Monkey, Nicola Roberts, Seagulls, Lighthouses, Teapot Lights, High School Musical Duets, Morning Pimms for the Royal Wedding, Bunting, Hotel Room Chat Show Studios, Lupercalia Release Show, Will Young Sing-a-longs, Cannibals and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Adventures to the Valleys, People Watching in the Bay, Avoiding Tourists, Packing, Cute New Westwoods, The House at 91 and The Coburn Street Family, Discovery Realtime, Power Tool Mondays, Macey, Mildred, Taxidermy, Library Sundays, Jeff, Skype Dates, Team Mike, Hollywood Hair, Accio Deathly Hallows, WHY AM I SO GOOD AT COOKING?, Devey Duvalays, Day of the Dead, Mini Barbecues, Take Me Home Country Road, Elton John and Kiki Dee, Late Night Playground Times, Drive Thru Starbucks, The World Not Ending, Justin Bieber Likes Giraffes, Cougars in the Library, Hairdressing Mondays, Ponytails, Elbow Fury, Albany Road Ke$ha, Rebecca Black, Chipi Chipi, Gay Bargain Church, Matthew Rhys, Renesmee, Dinosaurs, Wedding SOS, and Sunflowers.

It seems only appropriate to round off the year with todays like blog looking at ten things that I have loved and become a bit obsessed with over the last year.

1. Diamond Rings

2. PJ Harvey's Let England Shake

3. Lupercalia and Brumalia

4. Nicola Roberts

5. Beginners

6. New Girl

7. We Need to Talk About Kevin

8. Frozen Planet

9.Black Mirror

10. Rebecca Black (questionable but I'm standing by it)

tx

There are many important internet things going on all the time however I feel that one of 2011's key internet components for me was tumblr. I'm not sure if anyone out there uses if for anything more than funny pictures and gifs but it's kinda nice to have somewhere where you know you can see as many mean girls gifs to your hearts content. 

This Thursday rather than bringing you a news story I thought I would give you one of my favourite tumblr pages. It's been around for a while and sadly I don't think it has been updated for a while either but it all seems quite appropriate given the high quantities of Bublé  EVERYWHERE this Christmas. I give to you Michael Bublé Being Stalked by a Velociraptor. Enjoy! 

http://bubleraptor.tumblr.com/post/583934475/submitted-by-sean-g-submit-your-own

(sadly I can take no credit for this)

tx

It's that time of year again when in a post Christmas haze people begin to realise what they don't like in their lives. The time of year when people are fed up of the Christmas cheer and have maybe drank/eaten too much and decide that it is time to make a change. The time of year that people begin to think about New Year's resolutions.

I hate new year resolutions. I don't think I know of anyone who has made them that have managed to keep them up for the whole year. Changing something for just the first few weeks in January is never really going to affect things, everyone knows that January is a time for post Christmas blues so changing something then might not be the best idea because you will only end up giving in and being disappointed in yourself.

This year I propose some mid year resolutions too, we will all do a little bit better if we don't start the year with such high expectations of the year to come and take a moment half way through to reflect on the way things are going and change what we don't like then.

tx

 With risk of sounding like the person I previously criticised IT WAS CHRISTMAAAAAAAAAS. You'd think that once it was over everything would return to normally but it seems to take forever doesn't it? For example I went to work today expecting to just write a quick Monday blog tonight but then after spending most of the day thinking it was Monday I realised that it was in fact Tuesday and I was meant to be reviewing anything. To be honest I can't really think of anything to review as all I seem to have done since last Tuesday is shop and attend Christmas things, so you shall just have to live with a Monday blog on a Tuesday, how novel.


Christmas was as chaotic as always, I'm sure anyone with more than one set of parents will agree. It is always pretty difficult trying to fit in seeing everyone and coordinating your day without seeming controlling and demanding. This year however although a bit chaotic didn't result in me getting stressed with anyone so you could say it went well. It was in fact all rather lovely. Does this now count as a review of Christmas?


Hoping you had a lovely Christmas too!


tx

I'm not sure if it's because it's Christmastime or if it is because the one cat that I have keeps biting me when I walk past him but recently I have been drawn to many a rescue kitten website. I have asked far too many times for someone to buy me a kitten (I would call him Sebastian by the way because that's an awesome name for a kitten) but then I found something on the BBC website that made me change my mind completely about the kitten.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16295287

It's a little polar bear cub which has been taken into care (click below the picture and there is an adorable video). Sure it would be able to claw my face off eventually but I am sure we could deal with that when it comes to it.

tx

Ranting Wednesday is coming to you late this week. I would say I didn't forget but remembering at midnight isn't exactly helpful when all you want to do is sleep.

This week I want to talk about a particular breed of cinema idiot and they aren't the type you usually find mentioned when people rant about the other people at the cinema. Usually it seems to be about teenager who giggle and chat through films, people with rustling sweet wrappers or stinky food and the curse of the mobile phone ringing in a tense cinematic moment. I am however willing to apply this to anyone who interrupts a film viewing and quite recently I found a cinema idiot in a new form, cinema staff.

I had been to see 50/50 and admittedly it was a late viewing and there weren't many people in the screen but there is no excuse for the staff to show such cinema idiocy by wandering chatting and noisily cleaning the back rows of the screen where no one is sitting. It's not often that I carry out my threats of complaints but this time I sent an email to the cinema (CINEWORLD - I still haven't forgiven them for the Harry Potter chaos), so I must have been annoyed. Quite an emotion moment of the film was ruined by their little conversations and surely they should just know better.

tx

The target of this weeks Revuesday? New Year's Eve. Not the day (I'm not all that keen on that) but the film directed by Garry Marshall. In what seemed to be a direct concept sequel to Valentine's Day the film dealt with multiple star studded storylines however based the celebrations of New Year's Eve rather than Valentine's Day,  rather evident from their titles. 

I'm going to go with the film was okay. I didn't head into it with high expectations as from the outset it was clear that this was only ever meant to be a light hearted and potentially touching holiday film. If it was meant to be present me with a deeper look at life or some sort of meaning it was completely lost on me as I saw it as essentially a tourist promotional video for spending New Year's Eve in Times Square.

I couldn't decide in the film whether it was due to the narrative suffering due to weak stories or if it just felt like there were too many threads which seemed to be tediously linked together.I felt that the Katherine Heigl and Jon Bon Jovi story was such an example of stories that could have been lost, although had they we would have lost Modern Family's Sofia Vergara who although seemed to be playing up to a stereotype provided much of the comic relief in the film. On a side note though maybe they could just make a film about Zefron and Michelle Pfeiffer going on adventures crossing off New Year's resolutions because I quite liked that part. 

The film felt like they had drafted in four million household names to star in the film and then panicked because they weren't sure what to do with them. As a result it would seem that even those with proven brilliant acting track records struggled to make this film believable and moving which was obviously it's intention. 

I would recommend it if you are looking for something to sit and watch at the cinema in a post Christmas haze which requires very little thought (or if you fancy ogling Zefron for a while) but if you are looking for anything more involving or deeper steer clear of this one. 

tx

Monday has come around really quickly again, well actually it was a normal amount of time it just seemed quite fast. It's the last Monday before Christmas y'all, it's got to be mentioned. In fact I might mention it allllllll week because although many people may think I have the potential to be a complete Grinch I do actually like Christmas, well just the last week or so leading up to it (why make it last a whole month?).  The Christmas spirit descends on me like a plague of locusts and suddenly I panic shop and love it. 

I want to leave my Monday blog with a musical recommendation. I'm not really one for overly happy and shouty Christmas songs (Merry Xmas Everybody by Slade take note, if I wanted to here a man from Walsall screeching about Christmas I would head into town and find a crazy), so I was glad to hear that She & Him were releasing a Christmas album this year and I was not disappointed. Rather than going down the novelty song route it all seems a lot more traditional and soft, which makes it perfect background music for any Christmas occasion. 

tx

As winter is well and truly here I thought it would be the best time to share one of my favourite things about this time of year and that would be oversized scarves. Normal scarves will do but there is nothing better than having a scarf that can comfortably be wrapped around your neck twice and cover up half of your face. I have admittedly been wearing my huge purple scarf since around mid autumn, I didn't really need it as it wasn't that cold but at the same time its was strangely cosy. If I could get away with it as an acceptable fashion choice mid summer I probably would regardless of temperature.

I did learn the other day that the huge scarf does not come without a downside. It was particularly windy and as I was readjusting a part of the scarf that had been blown over my shoulder the other part blew into my face leading to me tripping over my feet. Looking oh so glamorous as always!

tx

Yesterday on my internet travels I found a story on several news websites that caught my eye. It has been reported that there is currently a mystery on the River Lea as a goose was apparently seen being dragged under the water by some unknown (unseen) creature. There is quite a lot of speculation as to what it might be that is living in the river with many suggesting things from a terrapin or a large pike to an unwanted tropical pet such as a python or an alligator which may have been abandoned there, however I have my own theory.

Taken from The Host (2006) which I actually recommend

(disclaimer: if this happens at the Olympics 2012 I'm not to blame)

tx

Wednesday always calls for ranting, it already feels so late in the week and yet we are only half way through.

Today's rant belongs to babe, love and hun. I cannot stand it when people I don't know use them towards me, it is patronising and won't make me think any more of you. I am sure it is meant to sound affectionate but instead it instantly stops me from taking you seriously and whatever it is you are trying to say goes out of the window.

Recently I met someone for the first time and within an hour or so they thought it was acceptable to start calling me hun at the end of every sentence. I found it so very hard to like her from that point onwards because I took everything she said as being patronising rather than just through familiarity because she didn't actually know me.

Annoyingly I manage to accept it more from men I don't know than women. I don't know if it is a midlands/northern thing but it is ridiculously common and I don't think I have managed to ask a bus driver a question without it being ended in being called love. I think it might be that I used to men being a little bit sexist and using this patronising phrases but really should women be doing it to each other?

I suppose I should just look on the bright side and be glad that coming from the Black Country no one is calling me cock.

tx

Tuesday had to be a review day because I dont feel like I can do this with another day of the week.......Revuesday.

Today you shall be getting my thoughts on Breaking Dawn. It's a bit late because it's been out for a while, and in fact I saw it almost two weeks ago but I always intended on writing about it because it was just too good an opportunity to miss out on (in fact I already did it once almost two years ago which can be found here). 

I tried to read the Twilight series, I actually got to Breaking Dawn and my reading cut off point is around the end of this film. I remember getting to this part of the series, I was sat on a train reading it and suddenly thought 'this is ridiculous, put it down' and so I did and never returned. I feel quite similar about the film, I'm not sure what will happen next in the story and I'm not particularly sure I care all that much.

I have to admit that I didn't come to this film with an impartial view, I was never really a fan of the other films and I don't think I saw the third one (something I realised 10 minutes into the film) not that it really mattered having read the books (sort of).

The films always look pretty but pretty is never quite enough to be entertaining. It says something about the film's acting, script and direction when throughout you are thinking about the location scout for the film. I'd quite like the Cullen house,maybe they could find me one to live in. The Cullens can clear right out of there though because although they are meant to be incredibly beautiful (I think it says that in the book, I don't dare return to find out) they seem to have made all the vampires stand out for all the wrong reasons with hilarious contact lenses and white face paint. Interview with a Vampire managed to make their vamps pretty yet menacing so why could they not manage it with this series? 

The first half of the film was essentially a bit of a snooze-fest. At one point two men wandered out of the screen, as they passed me I heard one mutter to the other "oh god this is shitter than I thought it would be", it's safe to say they didn't return. By not returning though they missed the comedy gold that was to come, first the mexican housekeeper who predicts that Bella's baby will lead to death (she out acted everyone on screen at that point), another being the talking wolves. I don't think I have ever seen animals talking telepathically done well and I don't think I ever will.

By far my favourite moment of the film though can be summed up by one word, Renesmee. It's a funny name for some reason and although not the film's fault I'm not sure it was handled well. It lead to a fit of giggles from myself and my friend (someone who genuinely loves Twilight) and the people behind us, from this point onwards any mention of the name would spark it off again. I giggled more at this than I did at Bridesmaids, so much so my stomach muscles hurt when I left the cinema. It was inappropriate and I apologise to the other cinema goers but sometimes things are so bad you have to laugh. 

I'm going to spare the film a star rating because I think you get the idea but despite all this I still think I might be back to find out how the story ends.....or just to giggle at the name Renesmee again.

tx

Right time to kick it up a notch on the blogging. It has been forever since I wrote anything and to ensure that me  writing that I haven't blogged in months doesn't end up as the last thing to be written on here for another six months I figured I would write some posts in advance. In fact I'm going to do some title doodles too to hopefully kickstart me into regularly writing on here.

Sooooo what's changed? Last time I wrote here I was writing my dissertation but since then it's been completed, handed in marked and graded and I am now a graduate stuck in that brilliant position that so many seem to be in, being unemployed or doing a job that you don't really want to. I'm currently temping until I find something that is more permanent but I'm sure I will sort all that out soon.

tx