Team Strictly...

...and whatever else I need to get off my chest. Such as:

1) It's going to be really freaking embarrassing if I've failed my dissertation;
2) Does anyone else's family cause them terrific amounts of stomach-clenching guilt?
3) I don't want to go back to work tomorrow; I want to be back in Spain, drinking all the beer and eating all the chorizo (that's no euphemism, by the way).
4) Why are my 16-year-old brother and 12-year-old sister both taking their laptops on holiday to Dubai with them? Why?!

OK, that's that over with, now to this...

For the first time in four years, I'm spending autumn at home in Sussex. This, coupled with having a job that requires a wake-up time of 5.50am, means that to my disappointment, I've become a lot less discriminatory in what I watch on TV. Which is, admittedly, a bit rich coming from someone who has no problem saying she enjoys Made in Chelsea - something the Boy felt the need to let slip at the pub the other night. A friend genuinely spluttered into his pint. We did all agree, however, that "well, at least it's not TOWIE".

Like all good Freudians, for my worsening taste in television, I blame my mother.

Let me explain. Mum's an early bird. She's in her dressing gown by 7pm, in bed by 9.30 at the latest and up at half 6 in the morning. She doesn't really do 'relaxed'. She's had one lie-in in the last twelve years. It was quite recently; I remember it well. I was genuinely concerned that she was gravely ill when I found her in bed around mid-morning. It's going to go down in family legend as "Remember that time Mum had a lie-in?" Right there with the mayonnaise-on-the-rhubarb thing. My gran took the wrong tub out of the fridge after a Sunday roast one time. Why we didn't stop her before a dollop had landed on someone's portion of crumble is anyone's guess. Where were we? Oh yes.

So yeah, it's Mum's fault. When it gets to about half-7 in the evening, and the dinner things are in the dishwasher and the table is set for breakfast (I kid you not), Mum settles down with the newspapers and mostly, some God-awful TV. She even enjoys The One Show.

Thanks to her, I've recently got quite into Holby City. And I can see why people get hysterical over Downton (that was pretty emotional when Whatsherface died, wasn't it? Good grief, is it always like that?) And I am absolutely, vehemently, definitely anti-X Factor - and therefore, Team Strictly all the way.

Note: while I am aware that Simon Cowell no longer appears regularly on X Factor, he is the target of at least some of my rant because he owns Syco, which produces the show. And I like to think of him as some evil Dracula/puppet-master.

It's probably not news to anyone that I'm anti-X Factor, actually. I've always been very much in my own world, musically-speaking. When my classmates were into Britney and Billie (Piper), I was digging out my mum's Celine Dion records. Yes, records. When the world calls for Adele, I say, "Right, enough, I'm off to find Thea Gilmore". You say Mumford and Sons, I say The Decemberists. You say Taylor Swift, I say Michelle Branch. It's the just the way it is. When I came in to find my housemate watching the Brits last year, the first thing she said was, "there was this weird girl with an acoustic guitar, you'd like her". She meant Laura Marling.

It's a question of authenticity, I suppose, and there is nothing authentic about The X Factor. No-one can argue that it's about the music. They can try, but they will be shouted down.

 Yes, if you want fakery and glitter, Strictly delivers in that, in spades. But Strictly is upfront about it. The dresses, the make-up, the razzle-dazzle - that's the whole point of Strictly. It's panto - it knows that it's a glorious, rollicking-good-fun panto that lasts from October to (fittingly for this analogy) Christmas. What's more, SCD is harmless.

 And harmless is precisely what the X Factor isn't, to my mind. During a Mock The Week appearance a few years back, Lauren Laverne came out with a brilliant line about how Simon Cowell had "slit the cultural throat of Britain and was drinking its still-warm blood". They say that Brits have a habit of slagging successful people, and yes, Simon Cowell has been a tremendously successful businessman. But I don't envy him his success, or his money. In fact, if I'd made my money the way he has, I'd feel very uneasy about the bottom line of my bank statements.

There's as much of the pantomime in X Factor as there is in old Strickers, but with XF it's (a bit) subtler. Villains have been played by Katie Waissel, Jedward (kind of - or are they more jesters?), maybe Rylan this year, I don't really know. Prince Charming has been played by Matt Cardle and all of the One Direction boys, to name a few. The judges are, for the most part, the Fairy Godmothers of the piece. And the ghosts whose chains rattle and clank in the wings, they're the harder-to-pin-down, but definitely more talented kids, like that Aiden chap, and Lucy... Lucy Jones? Yeah, her.

 I want to see the acts playing shitty pub gigs, to an audience of 8 (one of which would be the pub's resident elderly Labrador). I want to see the contestants locked in rooms, alone, with either a piano or an acoustic guitar, and not let out until they'd written one complete song. And if there was so much as a whiff of cliche, anywhere in the lyrics, they'd be battered over the head with a copy of this and promptly sent home. And all this before the live shows. That would sort the Waissels from the Rebecca Fergusons, wouldn't it?

The people who complain that Strictly is just a bunch of has-beens trying to have one last stab at fame are missing the point. I don't think I've ever seen a celebrity taking part in Strictly not bloody loving it. When they show the footage of the training, the famous person is always gushing about how hard it is, but how much fun. Strictly seems to project this sense of fun - even Craig has a wry glint in his eye when he's dishing out criticisms harsher than a Russian winter. X Factor just worries me. A lot of people - boys, mainly; do you guys just enjoy other people's misfortune? - admit to not minding the audition stages, because the woefully untalented and deluded are there to be laughed at. I cannot watch those shows; I just can't put myself through it. Watching the talented ones make their way through to the live shows makes me just as uneasy, in a way - the urge to shout at the television, "Retain your musical integrity! You do know that you won't have any control over your career if you persist in this? They will make you into who they want you to be!" rings in my ears.

Talent shows have been around as long as television, and watching other people put themselves through things we wouldn't put ourselves through will continue to be, you know, a thing. But I can't help grinning when I see that SCD is beating X Factor in the viewing figures battle. Frankly, anything that slows Simon Cowell down, even a little, makes me smile.

I'm going to stop, 'cause this is getting a bit wordy, even for me.

Being on holiday meant that I was able to reacquaint myself with the long-forgotten activity of reading for fun, and I can highly recommend:

1) David Mitchell's autobiography, Back Story - it's so very him (shocker, I know), and a great read from a funny, articulate man. The chapter on Victoria Coren may have jerked a tear or two - it's everything I've ever wanted to say about love but, well, haven't bothered to.
2) The Crimson Petal and The White, Michael Faber - like Dickens, with all the descriptions of its London setting. You really feel the grime and the grease, the damp and the chill. But this ain't no Great Expectations. This is darker, and raunchier - and for an 800-page tome, it zips along nicely.

A double whammy of musical deliciousness for you tonight:

This:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvCBSSwgtg4


And this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd90W09MuVU

Why I don't slag off National Rail...

...it's mainly because I'm one of those people who a) works in the middle-of-sodding-nowhere-ville, and b) is feeble enough to not be able to drive. (I tried, for a long time, but kept being beaten by the fear of the disasters that can occur when one is travelling at high speeds in a metal box. I think there's something wrong with my brain.)

The job I have, if I'm honest, is far more hassle than it's worth. Rail fares are jumping up, I spend over three hours on a train most days, and the job itself makes my brain melt with its lack of creativity. After doing the Sodding Masters (to give its technical term), I was happy to rest on my academic laurels and earn some money by reading bills, insurance policies and the odd textbook for hours on end. The only good thing I can say about it now is it keeps me from having to sign on for Jobseeker's Allowance. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just feel it's better to stay employed if the work is there. And it gives me something to do and, more accurately, something to complain about.

Knackering though the commute is - and it really is* - once I'm on that train, I really don't mind it. I get uninterrupted time with my iPod/a book/my own thoughts. I can people-watch, people-judge, and people-crush to my heart's content.

*When you're a kid, you imagine adulthood to involve eating Smarties for breakfast, staying up late every single night and never having to do Maths homework. Turns out it's just "get up hideously early, spend hours on a train - often with morons - do a job that both bores and frustrates you (also often with morons), spend hours on a train, eat dinner, sleep". On repeat.

I've said before that I fall in lust regularly whilst travelling on trains - and I've found that I'm pretty open-minded about who I lust after. Men, women, anyone's fair game. Recent train-crushes have included the geek-chic, suited and bespectacled chap with whom I shared a smile, once, when we both jumped at Boris Johnson's "today's the day, folks!" Olympic message as it boomed out across the station. This guy looked like Francis from Made in Chelsea, if that helps. He doesn't get the 08.13 to Caterham anymore, which is a shame.

Then there was the glamourous woman who looked like Rosamund Pike (like this), and was dressed immaculately in a navy maxi dress with a butterfly print and a cream mac. And the nice, friendly conductor who was sweet in a David Miliband sort of way, but who lost points for saying "that's a long way" when I bought a ticket from Littlehaven to Uckfield. Don't I bloody know it, sunshine. The impeccably-dressed guy I saw for 2.7 seconds this morning - shirt, jumper, jeans, Converse, long wool coat, stubble and untidy hair. The pouty blonde girl with the amazing eyelashes, who looks like she has moody tendencies and maybe a useless boyfriend she has to keep tabs on (she's always on her phone).

Then there's the rare,  but warm-and-fuzzy "aww!" moments. Like the tiny little black girl who wears a stiff school uniform topped with a red beret. All I see when she walks down the platform, escorted by her mother, is huge brown eyes and a little hat. Too cute. And the guy I saw a couple of weeks back, who looked kind of thuggish but was clearly besotted with the well-behaved Staffie that sat at his feet, eyeing up the pigeons.

Sure, there are people that annoy the living daylights out of me (this wouldn't be me if it was all warm-and-fuzzy and puppies 'n' rainbows). The girl in the paint-splattered jeans who knocked into everyone today, and who positively reeked of weed. The couple who look "alternative" and are all cute and publicly affectionate. I don't care how in love you are, 8am is too early for that shit. And the girl just looks like someone who would describe themselves as "quirky", and the boy seems pretty whipped. (I'm really getting my bitch on tonight. Eek.) The business types who look important as they hash out Powerpoint presentations on their MacBooks and talk in infuriating, meaningless jargon. Please. Speak. Properly. Or I'll re-brand you.

I'm definitely guilty of romanticising train travel. If I had my way, we'd still be relying on steam trains. Young wives running alongside trains as they pull away, waving their handkerchiefs at stern, yet kind men, who're saying "I'll write every week darling, I promise!" would be a regular occurrence. With all those people in such a small space, you could meet your soulmate on an otherwise very ordinary train journey. If you believe in soulmates.

It was Samuel Johnson who said that when one is tired of London, one is tired of life. I'd re-phrase, and mangle his idea: when you're tired of quietly observing all kinds of people as they pass through somewhere like a busy railway station, then you're probably tired of people.

On that note, have a bit of this. I'm not sure if I'm late to the party as far as this song is concerned (I'm not great with singers other people have heard of. Sad but true):

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCYtesyE7OA

Jealousy and other stories...

Apologies in advance for the length of this post. Like that girl in Mean Girls, I just have a lot of feelings. I am aware that putting this disclaimer here is only giving you more shit to read. 
As you were. 

It's been over a month. And people have started pointing this out to me. So, as The Bastard Dissertation was handed in 14 days ago, and all I'm doing with myself is melting my brain in an office in Uckfield (East Sussex is weird...it's no West Sussex), it's probably time I wrote some shit on the internet.

But first, I'm going to recommend you some cool stuff.

Number one on the list of Things I Can't Currently Get Enough Of is 'Moranthology', by Caitlin Moran ('How To Be A Woman', anyone?). It's a collection of her columns from The Times, and while I cannot recommend it enough, I will say, don't read it in public. A young couple and their toddler genuinely edged away from me and scuttled down the platform at East Croydon station while I was standing there sniggering at her description of how girls dance in music videos.

Number two on the list is the film 'Shadow Dancer'. If you can find somewhere that's still showing it, then I beg you to go and see it. 'Whoa there, internet wench!' I hear you say. 'We don't know enough about Northern Irish politics! We're not going to get this film!' Yes, you will. It's a clever and well-acted film that's as beautifully-shot as it is bleak, and you will be thinking about it long after you've left the cinema.

Finally, I've recommended them before, but I'll say it again. Check out Brontide, 'cause they're fucking awesome. And they have the most beautiful drummer I've ever seen (oh, wait. That's awkward). I saw them live for the second time on Sunday, and they were bloody excellent. There were also so many hipsters present at the gig that you couldn't move for questionable haircuts, over-thought facial hair and jumpers. It was like a live version of the internet.

Here, try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6lvuWDZpPA


The following isn't especially relevant to my life (at least, not currently), but for some reason I started thinking about it on the train the other day, and wrote most of this post in my head while proofing car insurance policies. So here goes.

Jealousy’s a funny old bug, isn’t it? It’s one of the few emotions that you can’t say anything good about. Blind rage? Well, it gets shit done.  Frustration? It’s lovely when it’s relieved. Grief? Tends to follow the loss of something good. But jealousy? Oh no.  It achieves precisely nothing. 

 I didn’t really ‘get’ jealousy until I was in my late teens – until I was in my first relationship, in fact. My secondary school years were spent in a mostly envy-free zone. It wasn’t as if I was an especially secure, confident, well-adjusted teenager (I spent five years in an all-girls school that had a reputation for academic excellence; of course I wasn’t secure or well-adjusted). I just never understood the concept. If someone was being particularly possessive and jealous over something or someone, I just wondered why they’d never learnt to share. 

It’s something you have to really think hard about in order to overcome it, I’ve decided. You have to come at it from all angles, slice it and dice it until you’ve dealt with it absolutely and thoroughly. 
Take jealousy within friendships, for example. Most people can probably think of a friend that has a bit of a Midas touch – everything seems to go right for them. Or, you can probably think of a friend you’d happily life-swap with, just for a few days. A very dear friend of mine has just got herself a job and a flat in London (she’s worked bloody hard to get where she is, mind), and when I saw her place on Sunday, I totally had an “aww, I want to be living and working in London. Like, now”. But then I thought about it properly. Would I want to be working in the City, in a hugely competitive environment, spending all day in heels and pencil skirts? No, actually, I wouldn’t. For starters, I’m shit at Maths, and I don’t have any interest in business (I loathe and detest The Apprentice).  And secondly, I struggle in any footwear that’s not a ballet flat or a Converse All Star. Wobbling round London in Kurt Geiger’s finest isn’t really going to suit me. 

Jealousy really takes on its monstrous, green-eyed, ugly form when it rears up in relationships. It’s incredibly frustrating because it’s such a paradox: feeling jealous can lead to some pretty relationship-ending behaviour, but it usually comes from a fear of a relationship ending. By acknowledging that you’re feeling little flutters of jealousy, you’re telling yourself that you’re not good enough. And then you probably chastise yourself for feeling that way, and hey presto, you have one sorry vicious circle. (I spend a frightening amount of time either apologising for having feelings, or silently feeling guilty for having feelings. Sad but true.)

This is where the role-reversal thing comes in. Or the do-as-you-would-be-done-by thing. If I'm kicking off about something (I say 'kicking off'; getting blunt and angsty is more my style), I make an attempt at asking myself if I would expect the other person to do the same if the situation was reversed. Generally, the answer is "No". Sometimes, it is a struggle and the "YEAH, BUT -" part of me wins out. 
This makes more sense if you can apply it to an actual example, so let's try this one. I get on really well with guys, and almost prefer to be the only girl with a group of male friends (don't make it weird. Also, this doesn't mean that my female friends aren't brilliant and very dear to me, 'cause they are). I also tend to like boys who have a lot of female friends and get on well with women generally - what I'm saying is, I would never kick off about a guy in my life spending time with female friends because I would never stand for them getting in a tizzy about me being friends with boys. I wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

And going on from this, I'm also a total and utter flirt. Not in a predatory way, you understand (though after too much wine, that one's probably up for debate), just in a harmless way. Caitlin Moran actually puts it really well: two people being lovely to each other and just enjoying "being total lovelies together". It's fun, it makes the day go quicker, and I'd never have enjoyed any job I've ever had without it. (Except working in a school office at uni last year. History and Anthropology lecturers are, on the whole, pretty hard to flirt with.) The point being, I'm never going to be able to have a "you were flirting with her! You so were!" hissy fit because I'd be throwing the mother of all stones from a rather ostentatious glass house.

About the bajillionth frustrating thing about feeling jealous is that it’s incredibly hard to talk about it in a sane, rational manner – and talking about it doesn’t necessarily help.  It's almost more acceptable to be jealous and possessive when you're around the 16-18 mark and you've got your sixth-form boyfriend/girlfriend; you're still young and making a hash of things. Like a young lion cub, you haven't really got a handle on how sharp your claws and teeth are, so you use them freely. No amount of reassurance from the other person in the relationship is going to help; the change has to come from the person doing battle with the monster. You have to decide that you're not going to give into that nagging little voice. It’s like waves, I think – you feel the first one, then the next, then the next – and you can let them pull you into their freezing tide, or you can plant yourself firmly on dry land and march briskly away from the water. 

You've had some Brontide, now have these guys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2BUEzdjfpY

Do yourselves a favour & just don't read the papers...

I don't mind saying I like a bit of gossip. I would say it's a girl thing, but it's so not. It's also one of the few ways I can bond with my mother - she doesn't read books but she does seem to acquire truly impressive amounts of trashy magazines, which she passes on to me. (It's not easy to bond with someone who regards eating carbohydrates as a character flaw.) And as I've spent the last 4 years reading "proper" literature and no end of linguistics articles, I feel no shame in flicking through Grazia or Glamour from time to time. Reading a magazine is like eating a bag of crisps when you're really hungry - it distracts you for a little bit but you know it's no good for you. The hypocrisy of most women's magazines does get to me a little, because it does seem that most of them are a gross insult to our intelligence.

But now, to what I was actually going to say.

In the last few weeks, tabloids and magazines have been all over the Kristen-Stewart-cheating-on-Robert-Pattinson "scandal".

And naturally, everyone's got well up on their high horses in order to make judgemental sweeping statements about how all cheaters are scum and should burn in hell, or whatever.

I feel sorry for Kristen. Mainly because she's the one taking the majority of the flak. Yes, she cheated - but with an older, married man who definitely should have known better. He had the position of power, presumably; if anyone was going to put the brakes on their little make-out sessions, he should have been first.

She's 22. Old enough to know right from wrong but young enough to still be finding her feet. (I'm not even much of a fan of hers; about the best film she's done is Panic Room). And, good lord, if every relationship tizzy I have was splashed across the tabloids, I'd look a lot grumpier than she does. (You should have seen the Skype strop I had recently. Toddlers have displayed more rationale and reason; there was anguished yelping and everything.) 

Cheating is wrong. We all know that. Can we please now get over that and have an intelligent conversation about it?

On the one hand, you can argue that we don't need to feel too sorry for Stewart, as she's never going to have to worry about money ever again, she plays the main character in one of the biggest film franchises there's ever been (unfortunately), and she probably doesn't have to clean her own oven. But to resort to stating the bloody obvious, all the money and success in the world is largely meaningless if you're sleeping alone every night.

On the other hand, her level of fame has probably sailed past the "oh, this is pretty cool" stage and reached the "this is fucking ridiculous, I can't even post a letter without being photographed." Yes, she chose her career path, and actors know if they're successful, they stand to to lose a certain amount of privacy. But is that necessarily fair? Admittedly, this is probably better aimed at the tabloid press (I knew my dissertation would get a look-in here at some point, and not just in the form of me moaning about it), but it is worth thinking about. Personally, sometimes I think it must be pretty cool to be "famous" (in my head I am the natural heir to Caitlin Moran and/or Tom Hardy's future wife), but then I really think about it. Every unflattering outfit, every bad skin day, every heated conversation, every moody look, all photographed and written about? Haha, I think not. There'd be far too many of, well, all of them. 

Yes, she made a mistake. 22-year-olds do that. 17 year-olds do it. Ditto 45-year-olds. You can bet anything you like that how the press, and the internet hacks, and the pre-teen Twi-hards have responded to her bit of crappy decision-making has got nothing on what she's putting herself through. But no one makes that decision without a reason, and they alone know what the reason(s) is/are.

Being in a relationship is hard enough as it is - to paraphrase a quote from one of my favourite books, "you have to think about someone else all the time and all you get in return is regular sex" - but if you're two very famous young people who, I'm guessing, are probably miles apart a lot of the time due to work commitments, then at times it's not going to feel like a relationship at all. I've never done the long-distance thing, but I know that there's more chance of Satan winning gold at figure-skating that there is of me succeeding in a long-distance relationship. A good 60% of that relationship is in your head, really. You can't feel like you're with someone if you're not, like, with someone. I'm not saying this excuses cheating, but there's a reason proximity is a huge and obvious factor in who ends up with who.

I can't claim to be anywhere near the moral high-ground on this matter, and what's more, I'm normally judgemental as fuck, but just once, I would like to see people acknowledge that there are two+ sides to every story, a variety of possible motives and reasons for every bad decision, and that no one knows what they're capable of until they're put under enough pressure. 

Enough.

Musically speaking, I saw this guy supporting Thea Gilmore back in 2003, and this is the only song of his set that made any sort of an impression on me. Almost 10 years later, I suddenly can't get enough of it. 

"You make me smile, and laugh too; how I'd like to spend my time with you". Quite.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzFLDrMm4k

 And this is shamefully boyband-y, but it got stuck in my head when I heard it in the London Victoria branch of Paperchase last Sunday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDL6aV7uKQU

The lyrics are very much from the songwriting-by-numbers school of thought, but there's something quite hypnotic about it.

Whatever floats your goat...

I have at last decided, I am not going to read any of the Fifty Shades trilogy.

And I really want to. It genuinely pleases me that books of that kind (I would call them erotic fiction, but having read excerpts here and there, that would be an insult to the rest of the genre) have rocketed into the bestsellers' lists, developed a stronghold there and have become such a talking point. Even Phillip Schofield has said they're good - or at least, the fact that they exist is a good thing (I used to fancy him when I was a lot younger). Even a few days ago, every third woman I saw on the train was reading a Fifty Shades book - I thought the hype was mostly over by now. But apparently, it persists.

And I don't normally get taken in by hype. If everyone's telling me that something is amazing, for some reason even I can't quite explain, my instinctive reaction is to think "it can't be that good".* It's why I've never seen The Hangover. Or The Notebook. It's why I do not find Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper or Ryan Reynolds attractive in any way. And this reaction doesn't come from a hipster-ish need to shun whatever might be drifting merrily down the mainstream, however much my friends want to think so. I just seem to have this default setting that makes me think, "if everyone thinks it's that good" - whatever it is - "then the thing in question can't be trying hard enough".

*Things I've been wrong about: (500) Days of Summer (it really is that cute. Don't watch it with your significant other, though; you might come over all, like, feeling-y or something). Razorlight's first album. The Civil Wars. Reel Big Fish live. That's kind of it.

But back to the matter at hand.

Like I said, I want to read them. Or rather, I want to want to read them. (I also really want to make a terrible pun about reading them so I can join the mass debate, but I won't.)

I know I'm not going to put myself through it though, purely because of how they're written (I don't want to say "badly", because hey, who's the published author, me or E.L. James?). But the clumsy, wince-inducing prose style and the incredibly irritating narrator will infuriate me to distraction before I find anything vaguely erotic about the books. It's a shame, because really, there is so much potential there: the naive, wide-eyed young girl being seduced and corrupted by the complicated - and by all accounts, rather bossy - mysterious (and conveniently rich) man... We've all had that fantasy, right?

Anyway... It's a shame, because I think in the hands of a more skilled writer, the books would have been truly great. Seriously, what's the whole "inner goddess" thing about? (If I get bored while dandering about in town, I duck in to WH Smiths and read a few lines, wince, chuckle and wander off again. Thinking about it, I've probably read a fair bit of the first book through doing this.) I don't have an inner goddess, I don't think. If I do, she's socially awkward and terribly indecisive, so if you find that remotely sexy, I'm your girl. I want to support the Fifty Shades cause - for want of a better word - because it seems to have got many, many women talking very publicly about what they find hot - an area of conversation that I don't think it's too controversial to say, has previously been dominated by men. (And speaking of being dominated by men... oh, it's too easy.)

I didn't want to give this too much of a feminist slant because, let's be honest, that sounds rather dull. But it seems that part of the reason Fifty Shades has become so talked-about is because it's essentially mainstream porn for the girls. Which we haven't had, really, up until now. (Not that I've looked.) Guys have had it easier in that respect for quite some time. Already, Fifty Shades is spawning copy-cat stories - it's like Twilight all over again - and while these bandwagon-jumping tales might well be worse than the wagon that came first (God forbid), hopefully this means that erotic fiction will maintain a presence in the best-seller charts for time to come. Or will at least prompt people to seek out the better-written stuff. Like Anais Nin, or Erica Jong. Or even when Sarra Manning gets two of her main characters in a bedroom. Or, as you're on the internet, try that.

So - not that I can really conclude with anything useful, as I'm on the fence myself - I wish I could switch off my word-geekery and rattle through the trilogy, because I'm nothing but in favour of erotic fiction. But it really, really kills the mood when the choice of words makes you cringe. It's like having someone talk dirty to you in a strong Birmingham accent - just kind of wrong (oh God, please no-one take offence) ...I think I should go before I say something worse...


I must quickly explain the rather odd title of this entry - a few nights ago, I was joking around with a friend and said something along the lines of "Well, the wildest night I ever had involved dwarves and the sacrifice of a goat..." (Funnily enough, this is what's known as a lie.) To which he responded, "Whatever floats your boat, I guess!" I couldn't resist saying, "Don't you mean... goat?" Heavy groans all round.

Here, have some Tim Minchin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V41R1p9hjNg

My favourite verse starts at 2:19. It's the work of a genius (well, almost).

And I'm listening to these guys' new album, but this song is one of my favourites by them (and probably one of my favourite songs ever). They're very good live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnPCoCfz1mM