friends with benefits

Not those kinds of benefits.

See, my last post (Click here. Or scroll down. Go on fat fingers, give ‘em a workout) got me thinking.

Not about that. God. You’re obsessed!

I’m talking about REAL benefits, people, not that kind of Marie Claire shtick some guy made up because (a) it was a cool name for the new Jennifer Aniston movie and (b) he had the hots for that girl with the ‘tache because he’d always had a thing for body hair so he wanted to bone her and maybe go to the cinema, maybe catch that new Jennifer Aniston movie, but not in public because, duh, she had a moustache and double duh, it was, like, the new Jennifer Aniston movie.

I don’t know where I’m going with this.

Anyway.

All this unasked for relationship advice proved as useless as Ben Clarke’s not-quite-a-scholarship to Sandhurst on the last season of the Apprentice, which got me wondering, erm, when it was going to be on again. Oh, and whether I should make new friends.

Joke.

JOKE!!

But if I was in the market for a new gang to spend my leisure time with, these guys would be top of the list. Yes I made a list. And yes I know that having actually made said list basically counts me out of having any more friends, EVER, but bear with me. It's just a list.

1. Cher



OK, so she might make me wear white knee-high socks and a kilt, but she lives in a super fly California mansion and she's a virgin who can't drive, which would make me feel good about myself. I mean, look what she did for Ty. Hmm. Wait a second. What DID she do for Ty? Looking back it seems like Ty was on a pretty slippery slope since that time Cher got her to make out with Travis. She moved to Sin City, became a meth head in Spun and.. oh yeah. Died. Shit.

2. The entire cast of Empire Records



See, the thing about these guys is, no matter how many Mariah Carey CDs I shoplifted, or how much of Joe’s money I lost at the casino, or how bad I looked with a shaved head/in a kilt and Doc Martens (wait, another kilt? what’s going on here?) they’d love me for who I was, goddammit! I'd get to sing a duet with Burko on top of a building. I'd even be friends with Rex Manning, although sex would probably get in the way.

3. Pootie Tang



Simply by association with the spawn of Daddy Tang and Momma Dee, I, like musician/actor/folk hero Pootie, would be too cool for words. We’d hang out with Biggie Shorty on street corners (she ain’t hookin’) or with our other friends, Missy Elliot and Chris Rock, dressed as a corn-on-the-cob. And if anyone tried to mess with us, even if my Pootie didn’t have his magic belt, I’d be safe in the knowledge that he’d tie the haters up in verbal knots:

“See, my damie, Pootie Tang don't wa-da-tah to the shama cow... 'cause thats a cama cama leepa-chaiii, dig?”

That’s right Pootie.

Right on.

You said it.

What a guy.

share the love

Advice is free, right? Let’s hope so, because my buddies/chums/galpals are dishing out dating tips all over the shop... yes I said dating. For the purpose of this post ich bin ein Americaner.

Bear with me.

First off, my flatmate told me I had to be more wholesome. Now, to be fair, she was in the Marathon Bar at the time, and flying high thanks to free JD cocktails down the road, but I think I got the general gist:

a) I should go to church more often.
b) I should only date men I want to marry.

Why she wants to turn me into a shorter and more homosexual version of Cliff Richard I don’t know, but thankfully I’m as wholesome as full-fat milk with a side order of superfoods on a Blue Peter commemorative plate, and haven't yet felt the need to revisit my last trip to church (Harvest Festival ’92, where I wasn’t allowed to give my shoebox in because the beans were out of date. THANKS MUM) or to set foot anywhere holier than the Glastonbury Chapel of Love. Hmm. Maybe that’s what she meant. Roll on Glasto ’10 - hang on a second. We’ve been through this already, here.



Shortly after, said flatmate’s boyfriend informed me that I was too 'matey' and should stop challenging men to do things ‘like pull their eyelids back’. That’s a direct quote by the way. Now let me be quite clear on this. I don’t know where he got this from. Table football, yes. Painful manipulation of fragile body parts, no. Yeowch.



Last but not least, my third self-made Jerry Springer - who’s going to remain nameless but never goes on the internet anyway – dished out a selection of dating tips more shameless than Frank Gallagher on a Tarts ‘n’ Vicars stag do in Ibiza:

1. Give them 'the look'. Sigh. If only I’d had a video camera to record ‘the look’ in all its glory.

2. Button and unbutton their cardigans. What are you meant to do if they’re not wearing a cardigan? Take off their watch?

And my personal favourite:

3. ‘When you're in Pret looking at sandwiches, put the money back in your purse, because that £3.50 could buy a hot guy a drink'.

Smacks of desperation if you ask me but it seems to work. For the record I’m not buying anyone drinks. And if I am, it's time for someone to take my credit card away and send me home.

anyone got a spare £400-700?

Good for you. Seriously. I mean it.

Clearly you know that there are better places to spend your lunchbreak than Topshop. You bring your leftovers to work and eat them. I bring my leftovers to work and go to Pret.

You win, OK? You're the Tupperware Queen and I need a Pret loyalty card. Now will you just stop going on about it and buy me either/both of these Charlotte Olympia heels.

So Beetlejuice...



... so marching band...



... so lovely and clunky AND with a gold spider stamp on the sole. So tall-making. So Tim Burton in drag. Je voudrais. SIGH.



What's not to like? Nothing. ZERO.

But you know what? Right now it's lunch time and I'd settle for a sandwich (in the same price range, mind). I eat pretty much anything. No mayo. Thanks.

dear Michael Eavis

What the hell have you got to look so happy about? Yes, your arms are disproportionately long, and you are showing too much leg for a senior citizen, but you have also put a dent in my wallet to the tune of £185 for the privilege of camping out in your back garden. You have basically stolen my purse and replaced two weeks rent with a small crumpled picture of Bono.

How do I feel about this? No, wait, how do YOU feel about this?



I see. It's like that, is it? You've had your fun now Eavis. Those shorts make me think you're the kind of guy who's up for a laugh. This U2 and Muse thing is a joke, right? RIGHT? A bad joke, which, as bad jokes go, is up there with the one about the nun and the cucumber.

You better be getting your iPhone out of your khaki shorts and tweeting @EmilyEavis YESdavidbowiemickjagzconfirmedgonnabdashityoCANTWAITluvdad right about now, because if you don't, Eavis, you're going to be in trouble.

You better confirm someone better than Bodger and Badger in the next 24 hours or, in the immortal words of Sue Sylvester, 'I will go to the animal shelter and get you a kitty cat. I will let you fall in love with that kitty cat, and then on some dark cold night, I will steal away into your home and punch you in the face.'

Yours sincerely,

Annabel Wigoder

eardrums

For GLASSWERK, right here

Veronica Falls - Found Love In A Graveyard

As songs about graveyards go, this latest single from London-based four piece Veronica Falls ain’t a patch on 60s novelty grave-robbing hit I Want My Baby Back (sample lyric: ‘ohh baby, I diii-iig you so much‘) but hey, perhaps that’s because it landed on my radar too late for Valentine’s Day. Less a paean to necrophilia than the kind of minor-key ditty they’d like you to think they bashed out in ten minutes in cardigans beneath a ripped Pastels poster, singer Roxanne bemoans a Wuthering Heights-esque doomed romance (with a ghost, and you don‘t need to be Oprah to tell her that one wasn‘t gonna work out) over this season’s Crystal-Vivian-Girls-on-Stilts fuzzy lo-fi and the kind of off-key harmonies that would have AutoTune addict Simon Cowell turning in his, erm, bed. So what’s the skinny? Catchy boy-girl goth-pop but a tuning fork in the post might not go amiss.



So So Modern - Dendrons

Calling your band So So Modern is really just asking for trouble, especially when your latest single slots neatly into place between a Test Icicles 7” and a Rapture CD from the mid-Noughties. Either New Zealand hasn’t caught up with us Brits yet, or they’re so up to the minute that three-minute post-rock-punk-funk-rockaaAARRRRGGH tracks are the future of music and I might as well just go and flush my head down the toilet. Dendrons sounds like the Young Knives unwillingly getting their teeth drilled, and will no doubt appeal to anyone who spends their Friday nights snorting Haribo, wearing baseball caps at a jaunty angle, or having MySpace parties. Here’s a fact, fact fans: the band wear white hoods on stage, which is, like, so modern.

I’m not 100% sure how to feel about this

It’s Robbie Williams. In a romper suit. On a plane. Why? Good question. In an age where all celebs worth their salt need to ‘give something back’ (or put it away) to avoid looking like, erm, billionaire Macca, who built his kids a hamster cage for Christmas, or guitar-slinger Sheryl Crow, who limits toilet paper consumption to ‘one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required’, good old Robbie spent a recent flight from London to LA dressed in a Primark romper to ‘thank his fans’.

Look at his expression. Is that the face of an international popstar larking about at 3000 feet above sea level? Nope. It’s the face of an old man with a bad back who’s been zipped into a giant sock against his will. And look at the woman in the background. She isn’t bothered. NO-ONE on this plane is bothered. Look at them. They see this shit ALL THE TIME. His romper could be bumless and they still wouldn’t care.

‘What better way to celebrate a lifetime achievement award than in an £8 Primark all-in-one?’ he Tweeted. ‘Come on!’

Despite this worrying lack of imagination, it’s the maths I’ve got a problem with. With the Robster’s post-Take That output weighing in at an frightening thirty-six singles, eight studio albums, eight stadium tours, two compilations and probably a keyring or two, his average fan will have spent approximately £400 on Robbie-related tat over the last two decades. Now, given that each of his albums sell, oh, a couple of million copies a go, that’s quite a few fans he’s thanking with that polyester piece of crap.

‘Hey guys! See this microscopic speck of dust on the smallest piece of thread somewhere around the crotch area? This one’s for YOU!’

prison: a non-prophet organisation

Despite the fact that newcomer Tahar Rahim looks suspiciously like ex-England goalie David Seaman in a dodgy tracksuit, this trilingual lock-‘em-up offering from French director Jacques Audiard came up trumps at Cannes thanks to a killer soundtrack, Oscar-worthy central performances, and a convoluted plot more macho than Mr. T doing bicep curls in a bath of raw steak.

Beardy Corsican mobster César (Niels Arestrup) takes volatile Arab kid Malik El Djebena under his wing, only to **SPOILER ALERT** teach him the dubious lesson that accepting a blowjob in jail is a surefire way to check out early. Though Malik ain’t the sharpest tool in the book – note to self: ten kilos of hash should be left OUTSIDE the supermarket – his gift for languages enables him to absorb Cesar’s underworld savvy, set up a competing drug cartel from Prison HQ, and… oh, you can guess the rest.

The old David vs. Goliath setup is a formula more tried and tested than Cow & Gate baby milk, and though it’s more a question of ‘how’ rather than ‘when’, Malik’s eventual revenge on bullying César is a masterclass in restraint – and all the more effective for it. Factor in a festival-friendly dose of freakiness in the form of a Arab ghost with a penchant for setting his fingers on fire, an educational flick through the '100 most inventive ways to top your cellmates' manual, and it’s one in the eye for a recent spate of disappointing gangster movies that included Vincent Cassel’s Mesrine failing to live up to its promise, and Michael Mann snorefest Public Enemies failing to do anything whatsoever.

Right, I’m off to wedge a razor into my gums.