In which I am a slacker

It's just been brought to my attention that I haven't blogged since August!

Whoops. 

I think perhaps this makes me the worst blogger in all the land. 

The reason is probably because I've not read as much this year as I usually do. I'm not sure why that is, exactly, when settling down with a book remains my favourite way to pass the time. I'm way behind on my Goodreads 2012 goal too, which is annoying the hell out of me so I really need to do something about that [and by something I mean read more, Josephine, read more not adjust said goal in order to achieve it you big ol' cheat]  I could easily blame work, and the fact that I haven't been sleeping well and am always tired and seem incapable of reading more than a couple of pages without falling asleep but God, what a pity party that would be so I shan't. Instead I shall just say 'whoops' and make a deal with myself to do better. 

Luckily, even though I haven't been reading as much, for the most part, what I have read has been enjoyable. I'm part way through Anna Karenina at the moment, although that's currently on hiatus because whilst I love it, it's also long and as Jen said: you probably shouldn't read Tolstoy when you're sick; you should probably re-read The Subtle Knife and so I am. I loves me some heartbreak. Ha. 

Most notably of late, I've read and enjoyed  Marina Lewycka's We Are All Made Of Glue which has been on my to-read shelf for forever and a day and which I really wish I'd read before now, because I loved it. It's one of those rare books that had me laughing out loud, and feeling a little sad and then laughing a little more and left me wanting to hunt out Lewycka's back catalogue because it was just that good and The Paris Wife by Paula McLain which is awesome and set it in Paris in the 20's and follows the story of Ernest Hemingway's first wife. I loved loved loved it and follwing on from that I downloaded about 11 Hemingway novels onto my Kindle and re-read The Great Gatsby because I think I'd have liked to have been alive in the 20's and The Paris Wife was so good that I didn't want to leave which says a lot I think, both about my book buying problem and also how much I enjoyed reading about 1920's Paris.
So yes, a couple of recommendations there for you, should you want them - along with I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith [she of 101 Dalmations fame] another book I've wanted to read for years and didn't. You should all read that too, if you haven't. You mostly have because most people aren't as lax as me but just in case, I'm throwing it out there...

In other news I saw Perks on Wednesday, which I shall come back and review next week, Starbucks have brought the Pumpkin Spice Latte to the UK and Strictly starts proper tonight, life, on the whole is good and because it's Friday and because I haven't for a while I'll leave you with a promise to do better and a Friday photo.

I saw the JCS arena tour last weekend, and it was fantabulous so here, have a picture of Jesus and Judas* because Ben Forster is pretty and Tim Minchin is awesome and everyone needs a bit of pretty and awesome on a Friday.

*the actors portraying and not actually Jesus or Judas because it's 2012AD and there is no way they'd still look this good.

How to be a fangirl, aged 28

This is the story of how I proved I still have fangirlish tendencies.

That should serve as a warning for what is to come in this blog post and I make no apologies.

If you know me, or if you read this blog on a regular basis, then you will be aware of my love for Glee. It's my current tv obsession, which makes me sound like a screaming teenage fangirl, which I kind of am - except I'm almost 30.

It's a weekly fixture in our house, Glee. Ian rolls his eyes but he watches every episode with me and has a crush on Rachel Berry and says I remind him of Sugar Motta. And me? I love Kurt. & Blaine.  Oh, especially Blaine.

Spoilers. Spoilersspoilers. Feel free to read no further....

In last week's episode, aptly titled 'Big Brother' we met Blaine's older brother.

Cooper.

Let me tell you something: the Anderson family look like they walked right off an Abercrombie billboard. I'm not even kidding. These are two men very fortunate in face - I'm talking Fiennes brothers levels of hot.
And very fortunate in voice.
And together enough to leave me flailing around and eternally grateful for Sky+ - I got my money's worth out of the rewind/replay function when I watched the episode, that's for sure.
Why?
Because Blainers and his dreamboat brother [and yes, I did just use the term dreamboat in actual real life, watch the episode, you'll understand] sang my current favourite song: Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know. I love that song. I downloaded it from ITunes after the first time I heard it, have listened to it pretty much constantly since then and told Ian WEEKS ago how well I thought it would suit Darren Criss's voice and that I thought they should do it on Glee and lo and behold they did. And it was amazing.

The whole episode was really really good actually and it reminded me a little of old Glee in that it broke my heart a little and it made me laugh so hard [which after the week I've had is quite the achievement!]

We had beautiful Blainers and his hot brother and the DuranDuran mash-up and Kurt [generally, as a person, always Kurt] with his crush on his boyfriend's brother:

'Blaine, your brother is the most good looking man in North America.' 

'Oh no, Blaine, you have to, you're both so handsome and good.'  

Chris Colfer should win awards for his facial expressions, he is such a scene stealer.

We had Fighter and Blaine's naked back [cue audible intake of breath followed by 'oh dear that's my boyfriend sat right there.']
We had Cooper's 'lesson' which was the funniest thing Glee has done in a while, I think, and some really touching scenes between other characters which were lovely but which I don't want to spoil.
All of it was Glee magic but the addition of STIUTK made it for me. I thought Cough Syrup from the week before was fabulous but wow, that song made me happyhappyhappy and I loved the character development we got for Blaine; I always love the more character focussed episodes of Glee, I loved this one more because it was Blaine-centric, I'll admit that, but the whole back story to his relationship with Cooper, the way it explained so much about things we've seen of Blaine in the past, the continuity [which isn't always Glee's strong point, let's be honest] all just worked really well and left me feeling rather pleased.

The bar has been set with this episode and they'll do well if they ever manage to beat it, especially since recent Glee has never quite matched up to the standards it set with its first season.

Anyway, yes. That was a nice time. In other news this week has been up and down. It was my Grandpa's funeral on Tuesday which was, well, sad. Really sad. I am not going to dwell on it though because I have spent far too much time in the past week and a half being sad and Grandpa wouldn't like it and oh my goodness nobody wants to read about it.

Let's focus on the ups.

We [we being me, Helen and our respective Mums] saw Phantom of the Opera last Saturday in Manchester which was quite possibly the most amazing thing I have ever seen on a stage. Seriously, wowzer. So so good.
The guy who took the part of the Phantom [John Owen-Jones if you wondered] was absolutely incredible. I actually didn't think it was possible to sound that good in real life. I had goosebumps. And I kept forgetting to breathe. I was just sat, jaw dropped, totally astounded. Helen was sat in front of me and she kept turning round to look at me with this massive smile on her face, she said at the end when I was just all wowwowwow, 'I just knew exactly what your face would be doing.' Ha. [That girl is so amazing. I would not have gotten through this last week, or in fact the last decade of my life, without her and her ability to make me smile even at the worst of times. I am lucky to have you, Helen.]
So, Phantom is my new favourite musical in all the world and I still can't get over how good it was. I would like to see it again please. We went for food afterwards and our Mums were suitably amusing, as ever and it was generally just a nice time.

Tomorrow is more MotherDaughterQT as we have tickets to go and see Strictly's Vincent & Flavia in Midnight Tango. Again, excited. There will be dancing and chatting and eating and coffee and shopping and probably more amusing Mum stories. I am looking forward to it.

I shall do a book post next week, I promise. This has not been a very bookish blog of late and I apologise for that.


And now if you excuse me I'm off to pencil in a time rewatch Glee again and to download the Glee version of STIUTK to my phone because I need it like I need air and to email Helen and ask her if she loves Blaine yet because seriously, that shower scene, and to continue to be a [very old] fangirl.


If you need me, I'll be somewhere watching this episode in HD. On a very. large. screen.

PS. I love this. Look at Cooper and Blaine being all hot. Look at Kurt in the background, stealing the scene. Ha. 

In which Breaking Dawn is terrible

Forever is only the beginning....says the Breaking Dawn trailer. Thanks for the warning.

Those of you who know me will be aware of my feelings towards The Twilight Saga and towards Breaking Dawn in particular. If you aren't and you wish to familiarise yourself with my feelings, I ranted about it here:

http://livetoreadreadtolive.blogspot.com/2011/08/day-11-book-you-hated.html

In a nutshell I thought it was a poorly written excuse for a book that sends out shocking messages to it's teenage readership. It made me angry; it still makes me angry so it should perhaps come as no surprise that my feelings towards the film adaptation, the first part of which I saw last night, are less than positive.

By 'less than positive' I mean that I didn't think it was possible for a film to be that bad.

Why?

- It was slow - I found myself checking my watch several times which is never a good sign and I'm pretty sure had we gone to a later showing I'd have been asleep. [& yes, I know I fall asleep during films a lot of (all of) the time, but not generally at the cinema and it's ususally because I am tired and not because staying awake seems like one trial too much.]

- It was depressing and not so much because of the storyline (although yes, that was several shades of terrible) as because of the mediocre acting - I don't think I've come across anybody quite as wet as Kristin Stewart in my entire life, she's so dreary and her voice sets my teeth on edge. Eurgh. & Kristin and Robert are dating? Really? For real really? I have more chemistry with broccoli than she does with her actual boyfriend (and I hate broccoli.) Also Carlisle got fat which is depressing in itself, like Michael Buble - he got a little tubby too, did anybody else notice that at the CINRocks concert? Buble is defo tubbier in the face, another depressing fact but perhaps one for another day. (Note: I am not comparing Breaking Dawn to Buble. Never ever. I'm just easily distracted is all.)

- It was funny, which would be a plus if we were talking about a comedy. Somehow I think 'so bad it's funny' is not going to be the best selling point. I think Helen and I shared the cinema with some Twilight diehards - there were a few Breaking Dawn hoodies knocking about the foyer - so I felt a little bad at the way we kept bursting into laughter at what were probably supposed to be the tense dramatic exciting scenes. Whoops. Seriously though, there's this one scene for example where the werewolves are in wolf form and so can only communicate via their thoughts. They're having some big showdown over whether the pack should kill Bella and her unborn vampire baby and you know it's supposed to be edge-of-your-seat intense but oh my LORD it's funny. I shouldn't laugh, I shouldn't: but seriously, a huge chunk of dialouge SPOKEN BY WOLVES WITH ECHO VOICES? We're really supposed to take that shit seriously?

- There is a lot of background music slow motion "look how pretty Rpattz is/how much Bella loves Edward/how much Jacob loves Bella none-action. Oh man, there's a lot of that. Those were the parts that made time feel like it was going backwards, slowly. Like Helen said, it's to be hoped the scriptwriters weren't paid a lot because they clearly didn't do much! Miaow.

As for the plotline, well, I knew what I was letting myself in for and Breaking Dawn didn't disappoint. The things that made me angry in the book made me really really really uncomfortable on the big screen: the trashed bedroom and Bella's bruises after their wedding night and the way she begs Edward to have sex with her again was horrible but hardly anything compared to the pregnancy - the whole pregnancy stuff (and so the majority of the film) was just shocking.

The wedding was enough to put anybody off bothering; I for one am certainly reviewing my options! It was more like a funeral, with only Bella's white dress to give the game away and she looked like the unhappiest bride in the history of brides, its fine though because Edward whisked her away on a fancy dancy honeymoon after which would have been lovely had she married someone normal, less lovely given that she woke the morning after losing her virginity to a trashed bedroom and a load of bruises.
Nice.
What was nicer to watch was Edward's torment and Bella's telling him how happy she was about it and begging him to do it all again. In the real world this would be classed as an abusive relationship but it seems that's not the case if the abuser is undead. That was lovely stuff.

As for the whole vampire baby issue, I don't even know what to say. It was horrible. It starts with Bella standing up to hug Jacob, her t-shirt rides up and you get a blink and you'll miss it glimpse of her bruised bump. That was bad enough. From there we actually get to see the foetus killing Bella from the inside, there's a graphic scene where her bones snap and by the time she gives birth she's skeletal, like actually skeletal, sunken cheeks, hollow eyes, grey skin, bones jutting out all over the place. It's disturbing and hard to watch and I actually couldn't believe I was.

& then Jacob 'imprinted' on the newborn in some weird arse dream sequence freak scene. Can't beat a nice healthy bit pf paedophilia after two hours of wife-beating and killer!baby. Don't even get me started on that.

Somebody please please tell me how any of the messages this film/book/pile of shite are sending out are any kind of acceptable. Please.


This whole franchise is f*cked up on so many levels and I STILL fail to understand how people fail to see that, how it's been allowed to become what it has; I'd quite like to Avada Kedavra whoever's responsible for that, actually.
I blame Stephenie Meyer.
Get married at 18 even though it doesn't seem like you're really sure, cut yourself off from your parents, let your boyfriend beat you in the name of passion or love or whatever (the same boyfriend who abandoned you to months of self pity after he left you because of a paper cut) and then let your unborn child kill you, slowly and painfully. Way to go with the messages to your teen audience Twilight, way to go.

The only vaguely redeeming feature about the whole sorry mess was the 30 seconds or so of the film where RPattz was smiling. He is such a pretty boy when he smiles.