Avengers Assemble

‘You’re part of a bigger universe, you just don’t know it yet,’ said Samuel L. Jackson to Tony Stark in the closing scene of Iron Man - and global dry-cleaning profits shot up 200% as fan boys and girls spaffed their denims. The Marvel Universe is of course famous for characters dropping in and out of each other’s adventures, but this year’s Avengers Assemble - the first time Stan Lee’s superhero supergroup have made it to the big screen - is less cameo heaven and more full-on fantasy bromance.

‘The Tesseract is misbehaving,’ says Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), keeping a straight face while uttering the campest lines this side of Glastonbury. Jackson’s one-eyed super-spy is the public face of secret law enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D., and the Tesseract is a fancy name for the one and only Cosmic Cube, a throbbing blue plot device otherwise known as the Marvel Universe’s biggest MacGuffin. Last seen sinking to the bottom of the ocean in Captain America: The First Avenger and making a brief appearance at the end of Thor, the Tesseract could be a bunch of bananas for all it matters, but for the purposes of this story it’s an energy source, opens a portal to another world, and gets all our Avengers together in one place. Handy!

The Tesseract attracts villain Loki, played by Tom Hiddleton as Heath Ledger’s Joker meets a more chiselled Professor Snape. Loki has a flair for the dramatic, a reindeer headdress, a Hulk-sized inferiority complex and a magic spear which he uses to possess elite archer Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner, next seen stepping into Matt Damon’s shoes in The Bourne Legacy) and steal S.H.I.E.L.D.’s favourite big blue ice cube. Ahem. I mean sustainable energy source. But Loki couldn’t care less about energy; he just wants a bit more respect from his family, via subjugating the entire human race. So who best to kick his skinny creepy ass?

Meet the A-Team! Hold on. The Avengers! With a collective rider which no doubt cost as much as the special effects, Samuel L. Jackson opens his little black book and gathers together Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Mark Ruffalo as Hulk, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Captain America and secret agent Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow. Whedon has been open from the outset about the difficulties of bringing these Marvel misfits together, saying ‘Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and Captain America don’t seem like they could co-exist and ultimately that is what intrigued me and made me go: ‘This can be done and this should be done.’ But Avengers Assemble has a number of secret weapons and I’m not just talking about Thor’s hammer.

First up is Joss Whedon’s killer screenplay. Penned from a story by Zak Penn (X Men: The Last Stand, Incredible Hulk) Whedon’s trademark wit is stamped all over it. ‘You don’t know what you’re dealing with,’ growls Thor. ‘Shakespeare in the park?’ asks Stark, with a dig at Kenneth Branagh, the Shakespearean actor-turned-director who unexpectedly took up the reins on bombastic blockbuster Thor. Indeed no-one takes themselves quite as seriously as Thor’s muscle-bound hero who blows in from Asgard and steals Stark and Captain America’s thunder (no pun intended) by dragging Loki out the back of their helicopter, but Hemsworth is as enjoyably pompous as ever, with an added dose of comic timing. ‘He’s my brother!’ says Thor. ‘He killed eighty people in two days,’ the Widow reminds him. Thor pauses a moment: ‘Hmm. My adopted brother’. Whedon’s whipsmart dialogue is tailor-made for Robert Downey Jr. who pumped new life into the Iron Man franchise and unsurprisingly steals the show. ‘Hi Phil,’ purrs Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) whose hotpants and tanned thighs do most of the.. erm.. legwork. ‘His first name is Agent!’ snaps Stark.

It’s a sad fact of action movies that our attention tends to wander during extended battle sequences, but not so here; Whedon puts his characters in increasingly difficult situations and extricates them at the very last second, escalating the stakes at every turn. Whedon’s film assembles not only four iconic Marvel superheroes but an excellent cast who, with the exception of a bland Scarlett Johansson, make engaging and three-dimensional characters across the board. Mark Ruffalo’s sensitive Hulk is likeable, scary and funny in equal measures, while cynical Stark and wholesome Captain America are at each other’s throats from the start.

It’s moving, too - a major character dies and another is called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice – and if you can ignore the tally of civilian casualties, Avengers Assemble is at heart a feelgood ensemble piece employing the same buddy movie staples which made X Men: First Class and 2009’s Star Trek such a joy. A stranger sitting next to me gave me a mid-battle hi five. I think that says it all.

Hello Stranger

It seems we haven’t spoken in a while. I’m sorry. Did you think I’d gone the way of that little scaley dude who blinds the fat guy in Jurassic Park? (A juvenile Dilophosaurus I believe). It’s like we had a one night stand and I never called you - but you’ll be glad to hear I refrained from selling your knickers on eBay.

I’ve been busy. It’s no excuse. Since my last blog I’ve been to Paris, got a real haircut instead of hacking my fringe off with scissors in the bathroom, got hooked on Mad Men and Geordie Shore, discovered the second greatest bar in London, worked out how to use Twitter, failed to virtually befriend Ralf Little, signed up for Zumba, embarrassed myself at a Rihanna dance workout, made my first visit to the Hackney Picturehouse, watched some sci-fi theatre, cried laughing at Noises Off and One Man Two Guvnors, booked extortionate tickets to watch someone read the Great Gatsby for eight hours, learnt to make gyoza and grew three inches. OK.. the last one was a lie.

I still haven’t tidied my bedroom or learnt to drive but I’ve started a production company. Fancy website and all. Check it out y'all.

www.beestungproductions.com

Bee Stung is the brainchild of myself and actress Lucy Ter Berg, my friend and partner in crime, and the swanky website is thanks to her graphic designer fella Aron.

We’ll be blogging over on the Bee Stung site about the trials and tribulations of running a company alongside a full time job. On the upside we've met lots of LOVELY people who met us for coffee, gave us tips and agreed to help out. We’ve read some brilliant plays. We’ve met some wonderful directors. We’ve taught ourselves to budget, and we’ve read James Seabright’s How To Be A Theatre Producer cover to cover. On the downside we’ve been drowning in Googledocs and getting up at 6.45am (yes you read that right) to trawl through funding applications in cafes before work.

I am not a morrning person. Lucy gets up and goes running. I stay in bed until the last possible minute, eat breakfast while sprinting to the station and balls up my mascara by doing it on the Tube. Our schedules are not exactly compatible but we are GODDAMN TRYING.

And I think we’re going to make some really good stuff. We’ll probably make some crap stuff along the way but we’re all friends right?

No we don't do refunds.

Follow us on Twitter @WeAreBeeStung

Steve McQueen's Shame: a not-so-festive treat

To say the talent on display in Shame are flavour of the month is an understatement. They’re flavour in the way Heston Blumenthal means flavour, which means gutting a pig seven ways, bending it into a balloon giraffe and making it taste like trout. It’s helmed by artist and Turner Prize winner Steve McQueen, and scripted by multiple BAFTA winner Abi Morgan who, with Meryl Streep-showcasing Maggie Thatcher biopic THE IRON LADY out next year, seems to be singlehandedly flying the flag for female British screenwriters. Oh, and it stars Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, last seen in superhero reboot X-MEN: FIRST CLASS and surprise pulp hit DRIVE respectively. Phew.



Let’s get the important stuff out the way first. Shame is the film my Mum calls ‘the one with Michael Fassbender’s willy’, which sounds like an episode of Friends. If it was, Shame would be the one in which Joey, Phoebe and Monica have a threesome, Ross gets arrested for S&M and Chandler lays off the aspirin in favour of Viagra, ditching witty gags for latex ones. Yes, there’s a lot of sex in this film. But it’s not very sexy sex, and no I’m not going to go back and phrase that more eloquently. Michael Fassbender has sex with everyone, Carey Mulligan has sex with Michael Fassbender’s boss, and Michael Fassbender looks like he wants to have sex with Carey Mulligan except he can’t because she’s his sister.

Fassbender plays city hotshot Brandon, a bachelor with the kind of rugged good looks women can’t resist, and the kind of income which means he can order bottles of champagne and martinis with olives and cocktail sticks. Is it just me or do they look wrong without Sarah Jessica Parker on the other end? But Fassbender has cornered the market in playing charismatic fuck-ups, and sex addict Brandon is exactly that. He’s the kind of guy Chat Roulette was made for, spending his out-of-work hours jerking off over his stack of porn magazines and talking dirty to prostitutes via his webcam, but, as the title suggests, Brandon isn’t happy. He keeps his distance from colleagues and co-workers, and when he isn’t alone in the type of starkly modern flat Patrick Bateman would be proud of, scours the bars and clubs of Manhattan for increasingly squalid encounters which lift his spirits only fleetingly, leaving him sadder, lonelier and more disgusted with himself than ever.



Brandon’s colleague Marianne (Nicole Beharie) naïvely thinks she can change him. She can’t. Brandon may need the love of a good woman but what he wants right now is a prostitute or three, preferably from behind, up against the wall, and dirtier than Alan Titchmarsh’s knees after a morning spent rolling Charlie Dimmock in the *ahem* flower beds. He’s a man conflicted, and never more so than after the unexpected arrival of younger sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan), a pouty wannabe singer with a neat line in Oxfam coats and an inability to recognise when she’s not wanted. Carey does stroppy teenager well, but her real moment in the sun comes during a slowed-down, melancholy version of Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York. Can Carey sing? No better than the rest of us, but as Brandon treads an empty Manhattan awash with watery blues and greys, the lyrics take on a timbre which leaves him in tears. He isn’t king of the hill. He isn’t top of the heap. He can’t commit to a functioning relationship and he’s about to spend the next three hours wide awake and listening to his married boss bang his little sister’s brains out.



Outwardly Brandon is furious with Sissy for damaging his career prospects, but Steve McQueen’s direction leaves you with the sense that a deeper personal tension is at play, a feeling amplified when a spot of rough and tumble on the couch turns into a potent, vicious struggle. The atmosphere between the siblings is uncomfortably charged; a further shame is hinted at in their shared past, but this isn’t Hollywood, so nothing is resolved and nothing confirmed. ‘We’re not bad people,’ says Sissy. ‘We just come from a bad place’. The backstory remains as ambiguous as the final image, which leaves Fassbender on his knees in the rain and the audience wondering if the film’s climax - a neat little piece of misdirection where a violent premonition comes unexpectedly to pass – will have any effect on his personal life, or whether he’ll continue down the solitary road he has embarked on, littered with used condoms and HIV tests.

With an unexpectedly theatrical structure, a dialogue-heavy climax and the fact that Brandon is never forced to confront his behaviour directly, McQueen’s exploration of Brandon’s internal conflict can at times feel a little slow-paced. Yet, like Madonna’s stringy upper arms, Shame improves with distance. Despite holding the current top spot for most misleading name in the industry, Steve McQueen puts his Turner Prize-winning visual eye to excellent use; the narrative unfolds in moments and glimpses, and the wordless opening sequence - where Brandon and a pretty women on the subway exchange lingering glances - is mined by McQueen for all the tension and uncertainty he can muster. As the object of Brandon’s attention uncrosses and re-crosses her legs, we can’t help but wonder whether the effect she’s having on him is intentional - and when he follows her off the train, it’s near-impossible to tell whether this is in response to a silent invitation or simply the natural progression of a life spent thinking of, dreaming about and desperately trying not to want sex. Her startled expression suggests the latter, and Brandon is left desperately searching for her on the platform. Shame is nihilistic, sad and frustrating, but it’s also beautifully shot and thought-provoking, with a modulated, tightly-wound lead performance from Fassbender and his supporting penis. I mean cast. Ahem.

For good ol' Don't Panic magazine. Who's panicking? Not me.

Wake Me Up Before You Ghost-Ghost

A review of The Awakening for Don't Panic, although I expect this little baby's going straight in the shredder once they see the title. No I'm not going to apologise. Wham (and puns) 4eva!

Refusing to acknowledge the British film industry is short on cash is as pointless as denying newly bronzed and pec-tastic Jodie Marsh’s gradual metamorphosis into Peter Andre circa 1995 - but that’s no excuse for borrowing outtakes.



Approximately fourteen minutes into The Awakening, as the train from Platform 9 3/4 huffs and puffs across an aqueduct into the impossibly green and luscious British countryside, we’re settling in for another jolly term at Hogwarts when - hang on a minute! What’s Dolores “not another pastel twinset” Umbridge doing here? Didn’t she die at the end of the Order of the Phoenix? Oh I see. Despite the misleading presence of Potter stalwart Imelda Staunton, a boarding school larger than most of the Home Counties, and a carrot-haired boy with no friends and a vacuous expression, it turns out we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto, but rather some way into the debut feature by British TV director Nick Murphy, and a valiant attempt at putting a spin on the ol’ **SPOILER ALERT** I-See-Dead-People sub-genre. Although if that ginger kid isn’t a Weasley I’ll eat my Sorting hat.



Set shortly after the end of the First World War, The Awakening continues the current trend for filmmakers to make absolutely sure no holidaymakers come within a ten-mile radius of the British Isles by conjuring up an overcast, moody England with a similarly austere visual palette to that of Cary Fukanaga’s Jane Eyre or Paddy Considine’s Tyrannosaur. A two-pronged attack by the war and influenza has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of British citizens, and the film opens with the not-implausible assertion that ‘this is a time for ghosts’; a quote lifted from the pages of a fictional book by ghost hunter Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall, master of the raised eyebrow, as commanding a presence as expected).

It’s a premise which promises a world seething with unfulfilled desires and lives half-lived, ably illustrated by each of the central characters. Here’s the skinny. Self-flagellating headmaster Mallory (Dominic West) runs haunted Rookwood School alongside bereaved housekeeper Maud (Imelda Staunton) and hires ultra-modern lady scientist Florence to debunk stories of a ghost before the parents make a break for the nearest catchment areas, or alternatively knuckle down in the back yard and teach them to count with rocks, Big Society style. Now that’s a scary thought.



Florence makes a living debunking ghosts in a masochistic attempt to alleviate the guilt she feels over breaking up with her soldier fiancée shortly before his death. She refuses to allow herself or others to believe in the return of the dead, and hope is a key theme of the film, perhaps explored most powerfully in an early scene where the mother of a dead girl, tricked into attending a séance, slaps Florence rather than thanking her for setting the record straight. This opening curveball bodes well for the progression of the narrative, yet the forthcoming drama is unpredictable in a manner which owes less to clever story engineering than a screenplay co-written by Murphy and horror writer Stephen Volk which turns out to be even more complicated than one of Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals.



You may THINK you’re getting a new and tasty spin on a British classic, but four hours later it's still in the oven, half your guests have given up and gone home and the other half are eyeing up the hamster and wondering what it'll taste like on the barbecue. Fuck you Jamie. I haven’t forgotten that bastard chocolate pudding I was forced to serve at 1.30am. And while I'm not saying I spent any (much) of the film wondering which character would be tastiest slapped between two floury buns and smothered in Reggae Reggae sauce, if we're going to go there then the correct answer is clearly Dominic West, whose meaty naked thighs get some serious close-ups in a stomach-churning subplot concerning guilt-stricken Mallory’s need to punish himself for having survived.



Ahem. Where was I? Ah yes. Thighs. I mean the plot. Murphy and Volk’s attempt to create something more than simply a run-of-the-mill ghost story is to be applauded, and on one level they achieve this, using secondary characters and subplots to delve into an England imploding with grief and loss. It’s a pity these larger themes never feel fully integrated into the central premise. Florence’s guilt about her dead fiancée colours her professional decision-making but has little impact on her relationship with Mallory, whilst the ghost turns out to be neither flu victim nor soldier, but Maud’s son Tom: a childhood friend murdered by Florence’s deranged father. The curious happenings at Rookwood stem from a repressed memory of this tragic childhood trauma, which Maud has lured Florence back to the school to confront - and given that Volk gives us little reason to disbelieve Florence’s cover story about her parents dying from a lion attack, The Awakening’s twist ending comes swinging out of leftfield with less warning than one of Louis Walsh’s turd-for-brains decisions on the X Factor. Will somebody PLEASE take one for the team and deport him back to Dublin. And make Gary Barlow Prime Minister while you’re at it. V-neck t-shirts for all!



The real threat in Murphy’s story comes not from the dead but from the living. Florence narrowly avoids being brutally murdered at the hands of fairly irrelevant rapist Judd (now there’s a phrase you don’t hear every day) but isn’t quite so lucky when Maud spikes her tea with poison in a last-ditch attempt to reunite lonely Tom with his childhood friend. Indeed, given the weight of audience expectation Tom carries on his shoulders as The Awakening’s sole supernatural presence, one might be forgiven for wanting more from him than excellent manners, a facial disfigurement which comes and goes at will and a knack for ping pong.

In retrospect, and somewhat curiously given Volk’s credits (Afterlife, Ghostwatch) perhaps what The Awakening lacks most is those supernatural elements of fright and suspense so crucial to a successful ghost story. Murphy is undeniably adept at building tension. The camera doesn’t linger on glimpses of children in dark corners, trusting us to spot the ghosts for ourselves, and there’s a nail-biting sequence in which Florence finds herself drawn repeatedly to a dollhouse in an abandoned attic room, opening it to find an exact replica of Rookwood and a tiny mannequin of herself peering at that same match-box sized dollhouse. There’s also a lingering close-up of Florence masturbating in the bath (MASTURBATION! A TROUSER SUIT!! My GOD this woman is MODERN!) underpinned by an unpleasant sense that her seemingly disembodied hands will, in fact, turn out to belong to someone else. Yet as the story unfolds we realise there’s little malevolence at play, and consequently The Awakening – an ambitious and classy debut which overall Murphy can be proud of - lacks the sheer visceral flourish and nastiness of, say, Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Orphanage, which makes a not-dissimilar attempt to reinvent the ghost story without forgetting that the audience needs scares.

Oh and one last thing. It occurs to me that none of the pictures in this article have anything to do with The Awakening whatsoever. So, like a builder with three inches of hairy bum-crack on display moving your spider plant to cover up the fact he’s done no work on that corner of the bathroom whatsoever, I leave you with... Rebecca Hall, looking reasonably foxy. Happy?

Golden Showers

First Draft Theatre’s annual short play festival APRIL SHOWERS is on from 18-28 April upstairs at The Horse in Waterloo.

The Horse is a pub. The theatre is above the pub. There’s a picture of Queen Victoria on the wall covered in punk rock tattoos, which is the second best thing I have ever seen on a staircase.

Not the best thing, because that honour goes to the octopus mural next to it, and anyone who visited my flat circa 2004 will know that deep sea montages - particularly when painted on the ceiling late at night after putting together an Ikea bed with a fish knife and subsequently getting threatened with court proceedings from the woman downstairs - are a thing very dear to my heart.

The plays are on in the theatre rather than the pub, and whether this is a good or a bad thing probably depends on the quality of the plays, which of course are ALL very good, so let’s hope mine doesn’t let the side down.

BA BAAAAA BA BA BAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!



Yes. That’s me, blowing my own trumpet. I am also wearing a straw hat, which is the only hat to be seen in when blowing a trumpet.

BIGGER THAN THE UNIVERSE (no prizes for guessing what was on my iPod) will be performed on April 19, 26 and 28.

Six other plays by other and much better playwrights will also be on in case the thought of spending an entire evening watching something I wrote makes you want to stab yourself in the eyes with a biro.

Check out the First Draft website or join them on Facebook.

Come and keep my Mum company, who is insisting on driving all the way down from the Midlands EVEN IF THIS MEANS MISSING MASTERCHEF.

Jake's on a train

It has come to my attention that this blog is fairly judgmental.

Not quite as judgmental as the Phelps family I saw on Louis Theroux: America’s Most Hated Family In Crisis last night who spend their downtime picketing military funerals and screaming GOD HATES YOU!! FAGS!! BURN IN HELL!!! at same sex couples in the street wishing they’d taken an alternative route to Wal-Mart, but fairly judgmental nonetheless.

So I thought that today I’d write about a film I liked. Yes you heard that correctly. A FILM THAT I LIKED. Because believe it or not there are actually quite a lot of films out there which fall into this category.

Lately I’ve been feeling like a lot of films have let me down. Maybe my expectations were too high (that’s you Inception). Maybe they weren’t worth the hype (oh hi The King’s Speech). OR MAYBE I JUST WANTED TO WATCH A REALLY GOOD MOVIE. Well whatever.

Even Submarine was kind of a disappointment. I really wanted to like it, mainly because writer Joe Dunthorne has an MA in Creative Writing AND SO DO I!! Which gives me a tiny glimmer of hope for the future. But it was just a bit… small. A bit TOO British, kind of like how Liam Gallagher looks when he wears a fisherman’s hat on the beach in Mallorca.

With the kiss of death planted by Paddy Considine as a mystic ninja with a mullet and an inexplicably attractive girlfriend, which of course is totally in keeping with the realist tone of the rest of the film, because mystic ninjas are two a penny in Wales and it’s almost a surprise if you DON’T have one living next door.

Oops. I seem to have slipped back into default bitch mode. Paddy Considine aside, there were lots of good things about Submarine and I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing what Richard Ayoade does next.

So there.

But it seems like whenever I go into the cinema expecting something to be a total letdown (hello Never Let Me Go) I’m pleasantly surprised to find it’s OK.

So I really REALLY tried not to get excited about Source Code. Even though it’s sci-fi (which I love) and the follow up to Moon (which I love) and the premise was kinda Hitchcockian which I ALSO love i.e. the whole concept was so up my street it’s paying rent on my back garden.

Luckily because the marketing on this film was so piss-poor it wasn’t difficult.

Look at this poster.



That is a TERRIBLE poster. It looks like the sequel to The Day After Tomorrow. And MAN I do not want to see that movie.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Source Code is about a man who has eight minutes to find out who planted a bomb on the commuter train to Chicago. Luckily – or not – some clever dick, sorry, scientific genius (Jeffrey Wright, hammier than Miss Piggy being porked by Babe the Sheep-Pig with a giant chorizo) has worked out a way to repeat these eight minutes multiple times until Jake Gyllenhaal finally gets it on with Heath Ledger. Wait no. Until he identifies the bomber in order to stop a second, bigger explosion in downtown Chicago. Anyway, these eight minutes are the Source Code, and Jake’s an amputee pilot who’s been kept alive and somehow transferred into the body of schoolteacher Sean Fentress to sort it the fuck out.

It feels like a thematic sequel to Moon. Jake Gyllenhaal (who actually looks a bit like Sam Rockwell if you squint) discovers he’s being used by the government. He can’t do much about it but he is DAMN WELL GOING TO TRY. Although the four endings on display here make it pretty much impossible to work out if he manages to do anything about it or not. Which is sort of in line with ALL THE MASSIVE PLOT HOLES, which I won’t go into now, mainly because my fingers will probably drop off from all the typing because there are SO MANY.

This is the kind of thing I HATE. This is the kind of thing EVERYONE hates. But they’re not obvious enough at the time to stop you enjoying it. Go with the flow and almost all of it makes sense. Yeah, he said the bomber definitely had to be on the train. Oh look, there’s the bomber. Hang on. Who? Oh the bloke who just got off the train. Oh well never mind.

Another thing I pretty much ALWAYS hate is whizzkid bombers in films. Their reasons for wanting to blow other people up are almost always stupid, plus how the hell does a 20-something Ivy League graduate know how to make a bomb? And not just an ordinary bomb either. This bomb has been PIMPED. Not only is there enough explosive in this kid’s van to blow Chicago sky-high BUT the entire van is wired up to some weird Rubix cube shit in a Stars ‘n’ Stripes box. I mean, come on. Do bombers really put that much effort into the décor? I guess in movies they do.

This would usually annoy me but it didn’t.

It didn’t annoy me because I realised it didn’t actually matter who the bomber was. Finding the bomber isn’t the point. If Source Code was just a sci-fi thriller then Jake would find the bomber, save the world, game over, and we’d all go home disappointed.

But the main reason Source Code works is because it ISN’T just a thriller. Great! Jake’s found the bad guy!! NOW WHAT THE HELL HAPPENS?? Because Jake isn’t Jake at all, but a very small amount of the brain function of a just-about-still-alive pilot on life support, stuck in the body of a schoolteacher who's fallen in love with the girl he's sitting next to on the train. And Jeffrey Wright's about to pull the plug.

I won't ruin the ending(s).

But Jake dies, Heath keeps Jake's shirt and is left to live out the rest of his miserable life alone because he was too much of a pussy to own up to being a gay cowboy.

Gotcha!

April COMPLETE MORON

I would like to start today’s post by admitting that I am officially devoid of functioning brain cells.

*waits quietly until everyone stops shouting NO SHIIIIIIT*



This morning I read an article in the Metro claiming that from now on all copies would be edible to save on recycling.

Here’s how my thought process went between Liverpool Street and Oxford Circus.

NO WAY!! EDIBLE NEWSPAPERS!!! Best idea EVER!! What do they taste like? The girl in the photo looks like she’s enjoying it. How come she’s tried one already? Did they do a trial run? How did I miss that?? Hang on, do I HAVE to eat it? What if I’m not hungry? What if I’ve just had breakfast?? What if I don’t like it? Can I spit it out? That’s WAY more gross than chewing gum. Bleurgh. What about calories? Does paper have calories?? Actually I don’t think this is a very good idea.

I believed it.

I GENUINELY BELIEVED IT.

You bastards.