My German teacher wore glowing bras

Little did I know at the time until I came across that video below!!

All of my German teachers throughout my education have been strict and scary, in one way or another, but none were as fierce and feared as Ms Jacob in college.

She looked like a stewardess, was always so smart and perfectly coiffed and put the fear of god in all of us. She had really high standards for herself and for us, and used to get in such fits of rage, she would just run of out breath and turns red while we all ran for cover. She was not a bad person, she was just plain scary. I used to call her Ilse, she-wolf of the SS.

Imagine my surprise when I found out she had reconverted as the lead singer for indie band Powder. I am not kidding the singer is a dead ringer for my teacher, it's just spooky. Not only is that video fantastic, but I can't watch it without thinking of my German teacher wearing a glowing bra, and gyrotating in her kick ass blue latex outfit and matching wig. Would have made German grammar so much more interesting if she had!

Gay Jesus

I'm going to hell for this...

But this is hilarious...



Very appropriate to put this on, while I am watching Keith Allen battling it up with the scariest religious extremists ever in Topeka in the US. They are called God hate fags or something and it's not looking good for our salvation (pretty much all of us are going to hell for some reason except for them) Even Lilly Allen and Hugh Grant are guilty apparently (possibly because Hugh Grant looks like a butch lesbian on their homemade banner)

Why are they obssesed by the gays? Why all the hate, this is beyond belief. They go to the funerals of Irak casualties in their hometowns to harass their grieving families, simply because the US army allows the gays in its ranks so they are all doomed. They seem to know an awful lot of buggery in graphic details though?! All done in the name of research I suspect.

The Boogey monster, in stop motion!!

My boy friend Terry has been at it again, he's made a new stop motion short film, using figurines he made himself, going as far as sewing the clothes himself and building this small bed/monster himself too!

He's getting better and better, it's not quite Nightmare before Christmas or the Aardman studios yet, it still needs a little more polishing, and we need to find a way of keeping the camera perfectly steady (ie buy a tripod) but he's on his way there.

I think he's very talented considering that he is working on a zero budget, but that's for you to decide I guess:

So I turned 32 last week...

So I turned 32...

It really frightens me how time seems to go quicker and quicker as you grow older, years seemed to last forever when I was 20.

Not that I think I haven't done much because looking back, all the things I did, finding the courage to come to London and stick to it when things were getting tough, all my travelling, all the people I have met, all the experiences...

But one thing I am really struggling with at the moment is the lack of time, when I think about how long I spend at work and then in the transports. I might not have much responsabilities in terms of families and stuff but I still feel I lack free time, compared to my cherished years at university (especially in London when I had 9 hours of class!).

There is still so much I want to do, so many books to read, films to see, I want to learn new languages (Japanese and Spanish would be so cool), I still want to carry on travelling (I'd love to do a proper big trip somewhere and take a break).

Maybe I'm just spoilt and should consider myself lucky to have a job with a decent salary, but I can't understand how so many people just satisfy themselves of a life spent working, drinking at the pub and not much else apart from reality tv (nothing wrong with it, I am no snob, but there is more to life than this) or maybe I should just completely rethink my life.

I love the way France is the only country left in the world putting some much focus on culture, one of my fellow expats was moaning how unemployed people in France get to go to the cinema for cheaper, so what? There is more to life than money and working, you just need to look at how 10 years of prosperity in Britain have led to so much greed, competition, inequalities, and have damaged society.

A few of my friends took the plunge and did some Round the world trips for 6 months, and then what? Back to your old routine?

As I remembered my birthdays in the past, 2 of them really stick out, my 21st birthday while still at uni in France, which was a themed party (The love boat), I had asked everybody to dress up like 70's tv series characters and they all played along...

And then my 30th birthday in 2005, which I had to postpone to 9th July since I was away before that, and which unfortunately fell 2 days after the London bombings, which meant half of the tube network was still not working. Yet everybody manage to make it somehow, people from various backgrounds mixed up so well and the was one of the best nights ever...

Lunacy

I saw a totally bonkers Czech film at the NFT last night called Lunacy. I've always been attracted to Eastern Europe culture for some reason (and I am not just talking Belami). I like the gothic aspect of their culture, the romanticism, the melancholy, the communist esthetics...

This latest provocation from surrealist master Jan Svankmajer is loosely based on two short stories by Edgar Allan Poe and inspired by the works of the Marquis de Sade. It's set in 19th century France (or 21th century Czech republic, I wasn't sure) and it's about a troubled young man who, upon his return from his mum's funeral meets le Marquis (de Sade? possibly) who claims to be able to cure him from his fear of madness by taking him to a lunatic asylum he helps running with some rather unusual methods.




It kind of dragged a little, there were some inventive scenes but it went downhill after the intriguing opening. I am not sure why but it is a given that any Eastern European film must include a scene with some fat hairy old men screaming and possibly bonking some nubile young woman and this did not disappoint on that respect, as much as I hate watching fat hairy old men scream.

Every single live action scene was followed by a short stop motion clip where severed tongues and eyes crawled all over the set, the kind of grotesque trademark of Svankmajer which has put me off watching his more adventures previous offerings in the past but it actually worked quite well in here.

There is a metaphor somewhere about totalitarism against absolute freedom which reminded me what my philosophy teacher at college was telling me about democracy and how we are all too stupid and irresponsible to deserve it but it was still fairly enjoyable even without giving this theory too much thought, I was hoping for a bit more gothic horror but at least I came out thinking the Czech language is very pretty.

Shame my boy friend could not be with me, because of his work, the style of his own stop motion project is so similar to that film.

The trailer does not do it any justice but you get the idea

Mugleroid

The above is a picture of Thierry Mugler 10 years ago. He is a French fashion designer that was renowned for his racy and OTT creations in the 90's, which were famously used on a George Michael's video and sported by the most famous supermodels of the time, including the iconic dress/motorbike dashboard metal combo.

I had not heard of Thierry Mugler for years until I stumbled upon this picture and gasped...



Yes, it is him, and he looks like a retired 80's Falcon gay porn-star still clinging to his former steroid glory or a bionically engineered German wrestler gone wrong. By the way, he's called Manfred now.

I'd love to be at the dinner party with him, New York transexual Amanda Lepore & socialite and catwoman impersonator Jocelyn Wildenstein, a few people who clearly think the natural look is not for them.

Lisa Simpson and the London Olympics

Yes I am jumping on the bandwagon, but it's hideous!

It looks like some 80's kiddie stickers, don't get me wrong I love the 80's ironic revival thing going on at the moment, in fact I just love the 80's period! And it's not a bad idea to do something a little different.

But this logo just doesn't cut it (actually it might, it's got some sharp edges), it takes some time to work out what it is actually suppose to stand for, the london caption with no capital looks like some hasty addition like somebody remembered at the last minute that it had to mention London.

The website is even worse, the whole design makes it look like some bad 80's kiddie programme on acid.

In fact, it's even dangerous, about 16 people suffered epilectic fits while watching the short video that comes along with the lego, which looks like something straight out an 80's Japanese bad animation.

Sign the petion to get it scrapped, 49000 people have signed it so far, in 2 days!

http://www.gopetition.co.uk/sign.php?petid=12539

The worse thing is somebody said the logo looks like Lisa Simpson committing a lewd act on somebody and now I can't think of anything else when I look at it. Given that I live right next to the future site of the Games, I am going have nightmare visions a bit like the one below for the next 5 years. Great.