Saturday, December 31, 2005

What was wrong with them was...

From 11 to 1:

I didn't like Wedding Crashers because apart from Will Ferrell's uncredited cameo, it wasn't as funny as it thought it was (see also Starsky & Hutch). It was also way too long, way too crude, and imagine if Vince Vaughn raped Isla Fisher's body double instead of vice versa - still laughing? Basically Meet the Parents/Meet the Fockers without the charm and appealing characters; always nice to see Rebecca DeMornay, however. (As opposed to Jane Seymour, but that's another story.)

I didn't like The Interpreter because it took an intriguing premise and buried it under loads of speech-making instead of building suspense, because it was turtle-paced, and because of Nicole Kidman's wandering South African accent. It might have helped if the cue on the soundtrack album titled "Silvia Showers" had actually underscored one of Nicole's ever-welcome nude scenes, but sadly no.

I didn't like Mr. and Mrs. Smith because it didn't do anything that The War of the Roses and True Lies didn't do better, because neither its action nor its comedy worked, and because it was another loser on producer Akiva Goldsman's CV (Cinderella Man notwithstanding). Also, Brad and Angelina leave me cold. Unlike Adam Brody, who really was good.

I didn't like National Treasure because it was dull and stupid from beginning to end, because Nicolas Cage refused to take it seriously for a moment, and because Diane Kruger was just as useless as she was in Troy. Sahara was much more fun.

I didn't like The Amityville Horror because it had more corporate logos than scares. And because, like the original movie, it was shit.

I didn't like xXx: State of the Union because Ice Cube was no action star, because it was just as moronic as the first one, and because it was badly written (by Simon Kinberg, who did Mr. and Mrs. Smith) and directed (by the man who did Die Another Day). And because the truly hot Masuimi Max wasn't credited.

I didn't like White Noise because it was boring and senseless. On to the next.

I didn't like The Brothers Grimm because it pissed away all its potential, because it played like panto writ large, and because there wasn't nearly enough Monica Bellucci.

I didn't like Boogeyman for much the same reasons as White Noise, only more so. At least Blade Trinity had Jessica Biel; this had the wrong 7th Heaven graduate (i.e. almost anyone else).

I didn't like Bewitched because it was a complete bastardization of the much-beloved sitcom, and because it demonstrated again that Nicole Kidman (who, like Will Ferrell and Simon Kinberg, has two entries here) is no good at comedy.

And as for Son of the Mask, just go here because I don't want to go over this one again.

Friday, December 30, 2005

If everyone else can do it...

I posted this on Guardian Unlimited, but I'll leave it here as well. My picks for the ten worst movies I went to see this year:

1. Son Of The Mask
2. Bewitched
3. Boogeyman

4. The Brothers Grimm
5. White Noise
6. xXx: The Next Level (changed from State of the Union for non-US audiences)
7. The Amityville Horror
8. National Treasure
9. Mr. and Mrs. Smith
10. The Interpreter


While it's unfortunate that Nicole Kidman should have two entries, she does spare Rachel McAdams some non-nip-slip-related blushes - Wedding Crashers was No. 11.

Cindylover and MuffinMan's BabeIndex 2005

And without further so-called ado, but with apologies to Hayden Panettiere (sadly ineligible until 2007), Tia Carrere, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Raven-Symone, Brenda Song (I should spend more time watching the Disney Channel - ineligible until next year, anyway), Alyson Michalka (ditto - and like Hayden, ineligible until 2007), and most of the female cast of The L Word, here it is. Some of them, like Cindy and Heather, are perennials, others (like the representatives of Veronica Mars and My Name Is Earl) are newcomers, but all are hot. MuffinMan's are in italics, and I'm too lazy to furnish picture links...

Paula Abdul
Jessica Alba
Sophie Anderton
Devon Aoki
Rosanna Arquette
Drew Barrymore
Mischa Barton
Kim Basinger

Kristen Bell
Monica Bellucci
Halle Berry
Jessica Biel
Rachel Bilson
Alexis Bledel
Edith Bowman
Buffie the Body
Brooke Burke
Erica Campbell
Mariah Carey
Charisma Carpenter
Laetitia Casta
Melinda Clarke
Kelly Clarkson
Holly Marie Combs
Jennifer Connelly
Cindy Crawford
Marcia Cross
Elisha Cuthbert
Rosario Dawson
Emilie de Ravin
Cameron Diaz
Hilary Duff
Kirsten Dunst
Eliza Dushku
Tina Fey
Jennifer Garner
Maggie Grace
Lauren Graham
Vida Guerra
Teri Hatcher
Salma Hayek
Jennifer Love Hewitt
Paris Hilton
Nicky Hilton
Katie Holmes
Kelly Hu
Elizabeth Hurley
Scarlett Johansson
Angelina Jolie
Catherine Zeta Jones
Stacy Keibler
Catherine Keener
Nicole Kidman
Heidi Klum
Keira Knightley
Beyonce Knowles
Diane Lane
Evangeline Lilly
Heather Locklear
Lindsay Lohan
Eva Longoria
Elle Macpherson
Josie Maran
Vanessa Marcil
Rachel McAdams
Rose McGowan
Eva Mendes
Maria Menounos
Kelly Monaco
Julianne Moore
Brittany Murphy
Gwyneth Paltrow
Lucy Pinder
Amy Poehler
Natalie Portman
Monita Rajpal
Amanda Righetti
Rihanna
Rebecca Romijn
Nicole Scherzinger
Shakira
Maria Sharapova
Nicollette Sheridan
Sarah Silverman
Britney Spears
Gwen Stefani
Charlize Theron
Uma Thurman
Leeann Tweeden
Aisha Tyler
Liv Tyler
Gabrielle Union
Nadine Velazquez
Sofia Vergara
Dita von Teese
Sela Ward
Estella Warren
Naomi Watts
Rachel Weisz
Kate Winslet

What a nice night that would be...

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

And onto the final 10...

To add to Cindy Crawford, Jessica Alba, Monica Bellucci, Hilary Duff, Mariah Carey, Gwen Stefani, Nicole Kidman, Laetitia Casta, Britney Spears, Rosanna Arquette, Nicollette Sheridan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Liv Tyler, Shakira, Jessica Biel, Paula Abdul, Nicole Scherzinger, Lindsay Lohan, Devon Aoki, Monita Rajpal, Erica Campbell, Sophie Anderton, Rihanna, Holly Marie Combs, Alexis Bledel, Brittany Murphy, Beyonce Knowles, Emilie de Ravin, Maggie Grace, Gabrielle Union, Kristen Bell, Maria Sharapova, Kelly Monaco, Vida Guerra, Lucy Pinder, Nicky Hilton, Melinda Clarke, Rachel Bilson and Drew Barrymore...
Edith Bowman. It's the accent.
Mischa Barton. Even if she can't act and is by all accounts a right little madam.
Brooke Burke. If I had known she was up for grabs she'd have come higher.
Buffie the Body. Sadly, Buffie the Face lets her down a bit.
Katie Holmes. Only because MuffinMan bagged Uma Thurman.
Vanessa Marcil. Because while I may have slipped in my Las Vegas watching, it wasn't her fault.
Amanda Righetti. If Trouble can show Summerland, they can show North Shore, right?
Kelly Clarkson. Because I can't fucking believe I forgot her.
Paris Hilton. With apologies to Jen, but better Paris and Nicky than Ashlee and Jessica. You could also, in a pinch, throw in their mother (Kathy, not Tina). But now we're getting gross.
Dita von Teese. Because I can't bring myself to include the likes of Abi Titmuss or Keeley Hazell.

The full alphabetical list to follow....

Sunday, December 25, 2005

She don't know me very well, do she? A Cindylover Christmas continued.

1:00. Open up presents. Swag:

A comfy fleece from Mum.
Fantastic Four on DVD from Zeta.
Thermal socks and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - The Complete Recordings from Sharon.
A multi-region DVD player from my sisters. With the instructions in four languages, none of them English, and no SCART cables (to connect the thing properly, KS), but hey.
Billie Holiday and James Brown CDs from one of my aunts. She's the one who's misguided.

Now all I have to do is wait for The Simpsons and for Jen, and...

A Cindylover Christmas 1.

7:30. Wake up, having been kept up longer than planned by the waiting for Sharon, Zeta and Mum to get back from Auntie Joanie's. And presumably having therefore missed a window to say howdy to Jen. Call Dad and wish him Merry Christmas.

8:00 or thereabouts. Go online. Talk to KS. Have a look at what's on TV (old stuff, yes!).

9:00 or also thereabouts. Have breakfast, made by Mum. Endure slight nagging because she does it out of love.

11:00. Go over to my pad to pick up a few more clothes, and accompany Sharon to her daughter's grave. Hope that the lowlife who keeps defiling said infant's resting place is dealt with...

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Some f***ing Yuletide, huh?

On the upside, I can finally do some actual Christmas shopping.

On the downside, Sarah "Scrooge" Woollcott decided, in the latest of many bad worker-relations moves, not to give us a Christmas bonus. Paid us early, but no bonus. And I paid my cable bill through Barclays, only for the fellow at ntl to inform me that I'm not likely to get it back on until it's credited. Which takes about 7 working days. And this is Christmas.

So now I'm back to feeling like shit again. I hate needing money (about £100 would be nice). And I hate not having cable at home (no, I do NOT want to watch Shrek and Doctor Fucking Who actually). And I hate the thought that the only women I'll be with over the holidays are ones related to me. Not that I don't love them, but I need to be with people who I can talk to and relax with.

Anti-depressants, anyone? More reasons to beg for something of an upper variety:
"Fairytale of New York" becoming the first song by Kirsty MacColl (RIP) that I do not want to hear again ever thanks to rampant overplaying.

Irena's insistence on playing the same stuff over and over again.
Almost everyone else sharing her pissant taste in offensively bland crap that really makes you appreciate John Denver.
No snow.

Hope you're happier than I am. I bet you are.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Reasons to be cheerful. For me, not necessarily you.

1. My mum coming over for Christmas.
2. Said mum, with Sharon, being introduced to my co-workers and charming the pants of the lot of them.
3. Mum being the brother of the Premier of Nevis (the island she came from), and thereby trumping my boss's mum, who's a Conservative Councillor.
4. Being informed we're getting paid on Friday the very day I find the cable disconnected, thus enabling me to pay the bill and have it back in time for the next episodes of Lost and Gilmore girls. I can go without it for a couple of days, since a lot of my shows are either off for the period or repeated or both, and the only things on this week I watch are Family Guy and American Dad! on terrestrial.
5. And, of course, also being able to do Christmas shopping.
6. Alba being sexier with piles of clothing on than Denise Richards is in a bikini.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

The Second Annual Cindys.

But first, two more Vanessas -
The Black Eyed Peas. For reaching a new low with "My Humps," which is ironic considering the video has Stacy at her most attractive.
James Blunt. GO AWAY. NOW. FOREVER.

Okay, now let's try and be positive...
My family. For standing by me.
Seth MacFarlane. For being allowed to resurrect Family Guy and for launching
American Dad!
Jessica Alba.
For reasons no one needs to explain.
The border between Harrow and Brent. For being narrow enough that I can live in Harrow and still not need to get a new doctor.
Cindy Sheehan. For services towards pissing He Who Should Be Impeached Please off.
Rachel McAdams. For making up for Wedding Crashers by being a more convincing heroine than Jodie Foster.
Lukas Kendall and everyone at Film Score Monthly. For keeping it going online. And for the music, especially the U.N.C.L.E. discs.
Hayden Panetierre. For being one sexy little thing, even if she's ineligible for the Cindylover/MuffinMan list until 2007. And even if her last name keeps being misspelled by me.
The UK government. For making same-sex unions legal.
Record buyers. For purchasing more records by Hilary Duff than Lindsay Lohan.
ABC. For cancelling My Wife and Kids. (As opposed to Alias.)
Eva Longoria. For choosing me in that dream I had last night where the cast of Desperate Housewives chose who they wanted to go out with.
The Guardian. For bringing back Doonesbury after so many complaints in the space of a week after its removal.
All my fellow bloggers and friends on and offline. For being there.
Michael Giacchino, Marco Beltrami, John Debney, James Newton Howard, John Ottman, Danny Elfman and John Williams. For the music.
And, of course, all my favourite ladies. Blessings to you all.

And onto the D-listers...

To add to Cindy Crawford, Jessica Alba, Monica Bellucci, Hilary Duff, Mariah Carey, Gwen Stefani, Nicole Kidman, Laetitia Casta, Britney Spears, Rosanna Arquette, Nicollette Sheridan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Liv Tyler, Shakira, Jessica Biel, Paula Abdul, Nicole Scherzinger, Lindsay Lohan, Devon Aoki, Monita Rajpal, Erica Campbell, Sophie Anderton, Rihanna, Holly Marie Combs, Alexis Bledel, Brittany Murphy, Beyonce Knowles, Emilie de Ravin and Maggie Grace...

Gabrielle Union. See, MuffinMan, I am keeping her. Unlike ABC.
Kristen Bell. The star of the most underrated US import of the year. She should have won Emmy Idol, not Karen and The Donald. Plus she owns up to being tiny, unlike Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Maria Sharapova. No need to explain, surely.
Kelly Monaco. Couldn't the BBC have brought her and Mr. Peterman over for their Strictly Come Dancing/Dancing With The Stars crossover instead of Rachel Hunter? So what if Kelly's less known; she's hotter. And her Playboy spread was far better than Stacy's Mom's was.

Vida Guerra. So much cuter than Buffie The Body.
Lucy Pinder. Would be higher if she didn't seem to fancy herself somewhat. Anyway.
Nicky Hilton. The less conceited, more attractive Hilton sister.
Melinda Clarke. One half of TV's current most ideal mother-daughter combo.
Rachel Bilson. The real main hottie on The O.C.
Drew Barrymore. She can't really be left out.

The other half of TV's current most ideal mother-daughter combo and the aforementioned Buffie will be in the E-list. Who'll join 'em?

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

The Vanessas.

Named in honour of loathsome British TV and radio "personality" Vanessa Feltz, and only because I don't want to keep typing "Oprah." Anyway, this year's go to:
The BBC. Although thankfully Sharon finally broke it off with him over the weekend, he's been such a pain in my ample rear for the past few years that he has to be here. Goodbye and good riddance.

The real BBC. For refusing to give Monk and Medium decent slots, for never shutting up about Doctor Fucking Who, and for its self-congratulation. And for Steve Wright. Still.
Abbey National. For outrageous penalties, and for refusing to register debit card withdrawals the second they're made so I can incur more of the damn things.
NTL. For being crap.The only reason I don't switch to Sky is that it's too much hassle.
Everyone whose fame, 15 minutes or otherwise, is due to reality TV. Except for Kelly Clarkson.
Madonna. For obvious reasons.
The editor of the Sunday People. For that loathsome post-Katrina editorial that I blogged about earlier.
Paris Hilton. For always being on E!, it seems like.
Angelina Jolie. Ditto, plus for the whole Brad Pitt thing (sorry Jen, but I'm very much on Team Aniston). And for Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Akiva Goldsman. For being associated with a whole load of crap for years (Cinderella Man is an exception) and yet still getting gainful employment.
Zoo and Nuts. For robbing me of dignity and brain cells each time I leaf through them. And for going through most of the same models nearly every week.
My new boss. For too many reasons to list.
The Bush administration. See Madonna.
LivingTV. For giving us Most Haunted, America's Next Top Model, Grey's Anatomy and Extreme Makeover up the ying-yang but burning off Veronica Mars weekdays at 6pm. At least they also gave us Charmed.
Kate Moss. For... oh, just go away.
Firefly fans. For being deeply obnoxious in the run-up to and in the aftermath of Serenity. (Did you see the box office returns? You can't stop the signal my ass.)
E4. For inflicting Point Pleasant on us, and for showing the five episodes Fox never aired. And showing them three times. In one night. Each.
Point Pleasant, Revelations and Threshold. Between them those three shows make up my ten worst TV experiences of the year, with Threshold coming last only because I bailed on said crapfest after three showings.
David S. Goyer. For Blade:Trinity (which at least had Jessica Biel's ass) and Threshold. This man must die. Now.

The Cindys to follow. We need something to cheer us up.

Oh, and Ben Affleck's penis. For trying to sabotage Jennifer Garner's career.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Moving onto the C-listers...

To add to Cindy Crawford, Jessica Alba, Monica Bellucci, Hilary Duff, Mariah Carey, Gwen Stefani, Nicole Kidman, Laetitia Casta, Britney Spears, Rosanna Arquette, Nicollette Sheridan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Liv Tyler, Shakira, Jessica Biel, Paula Abdul, Nicole Scherzinger, Lindsay Lohan and Devon Aoki:

Monita Rajpal. Every man with an interest in women has his favourite anchor. Miss "Those are the headlines, this is CNN Today" is mine.
Erica Campbell. Playboy's Model of the Year, and as they used to bill compact discs, small (except in the chest area) but perfectly formed.
Sophie Anderton. Not seen very often, but always welcome.
Rihanna. Really more of a D-lister, but being almost the only relatively famous female to come from Barbados I'll give her a lift. Plus she's tasty.
Holly Marie Combs. Still my favourite Charmed One.
Alexis Bledel. For Sin City.
Brittany Murphy. Ditto.
Beyonce Knowles. It's been fun.
Emilie de Ravin. The most fanciable of those Lost passengers.
Maggie Grace. The second most fanciable, with apologies to Evangeline Lilly (who will not be on my list because, frankly, I don't like her name).

Lucy Pinder, Kristen Bell and Kelly Monaco will almost certainly be on the D-list. Who'll join them?

Monday, December 05, 2005

21 worrying days until Christmas.

This sucks. Rent is due on the 15th (though actually being paid the 16th on account of it being payday), but unless I get very lucky post-wise or get a lovely bonus from DMWorks.biz, as Ashurst is called now - or even manage to get paid in advance on account of the last biweekly payday coming while the place is closed, I'm looking at either having one big amount of overdrawing or the nice lady at Borders or HMV or wherever I choose to buy Sharon the complete fourth season of Charmed telling me that the debit card's been declined.
Wish me luck, all of you.

And no, the above is not what I'm really getting the big sister - while I'm pretty sure no one related to me reads this, why go and tell anyone here? Plus the sister doesn't like Charmed. Or Gilmore girls. (And yet she likes I Want To Be A Hilton. Go figure.)

Sunday, December 04, 2005

So if Jen and Rachel are ever in the UK...

This was in today's Observer by Stonewall's Ben Summerskill. I thought about linking, but I decided to let her and the missus (and other enlightened folks) read the whole thing. Still a long way to go, but it's definitely in the right direction. US Government and most of the rest of the world (except, of course, the countries that did it before this one) take note.

For four million gay people in Britain, Christmas comes early this year. From tomorrow, they'll be able to give notice that they intend to register their partnerships at town halls across the country. Then in a fortnight's time, lesbian and gay couples will be exchanging 'I dos' for the first time, not just in register offices but - in happy harmony with the way we live now - in the stately homes of down-at-heel aristocrats and below deck on HMS Belfast, too.
For inhabitants of the Westminster beltway, life for gay people might appear to have changed completely in recent years. Since the summer of 2003, four major gay legislative demands have secured passage through a doggedly gay-sceptic House of Lords. The legislative hurly-burly of the past two years is certainly in stark contrast to the one change - on lesbian and gay adoption - that peers had previously grudgingly conceded since 1997.
Civil partnership itself, for which Stonewall and others campaigned so hard, is transformative. It will offer gay people every single right, and responsibility, invested in marriage. Even the Slaughterhouse Act 1974 has been assiduously amended by owlish civil servants so that a lesbian might bequeath a slaughterhouse licence to her partner.
This time next year gay people will no longer risk resentful families preventing them attending a hospital bedside. And hundreds of thousands of public sector workers will be entitled to leave a survivor pension to their partner, something they've been disgracefully forced to fund in the past without having the opportunity to pass on the benefit.
The Economist acknowledges that civil partnership will be dubbed 'gay marriage'. In practical terms, it will mean 'Elton and David get wed' headlines and Auntie Maureen and Uncle Fred attending their gay nephew's wedding reception.
It will also represent a world-class challenge to the 'hetero-normativity' bemoaned plaintively by sociologists for 30 years. For while Britain's wider population might have disobligingly resisted academic entreaties to challenge their own 'hetero-normativity', they do fully understand that if their cousin, son, auntie or schoolmate wants to have a wedding list at Debenhams and a honeymoon in the Maldives, it makes them pretty much the same as everyone else. Most important of all, introduction of civil partnership gives a message to a generation of young lesbians and gay men, and generations to come, that one day they will be entitled to the same respect and fair treatment as their heterosexual counterparts.
A stark corrective to the idea popular among some liberal intelligentsia that Britain has completely changed for the better as far as 'gay stuff' goes was the killing of Jody Dobrowski on Clapham Common six weeks ago. Too shy and embarrassed even to visit a gay bar, the 24-year-old was kicked to a slow death to reported chants of homophobic abuse.
Campaigners at Stonewall are only too aware that changing the law, tough though it might be, is really just the easy part. Changing the world is tougher still. And if you remain unconvinced that there's still a problem, just visit any school playground in Britain. The insult 'gay' is in common usage, even in primary schools. Lesbian and gay 16-year-olds with good GCSE results are more likely to leave school at 16 than their heterosexual counterparts, compromising their life chances. And confidence that the bullying which causes this will be addressed is scarcely enhanced by the knowledge that Ruth Kelly, cabinet minister in charge of our schools, voted against equality for gay people in the last parliament.
In the media too, lesbians and gay men remain almost invisible. And when they do crop up, as EastEnders demonstrated only last week, it is as lurid stereotypes. The BBC1 soap might have made ground-breaking history almost two decades ago when Colin pecked Barry on the cheek. But sensible Sonia's innocent peck from Naomi last Monday night apparently left Sonia so traumatised that she instantly jumped into bed with her virtually estranged vegetable of a husband. It would warm the cockles of prudish Lord Reith's heart.
He would undoubtedly also take comfort from the noisy opposition to gay equality still coming from some parts of the British establishment. Friday's
Daily Telegraph
duly featured a bitter polemic against civil partnership from 'Why-oh-Why' columnist Ferdinand Mount. Ferdie's principal complaint seemed to be that the Islington Council registrar who will soon host a ceremony between Sir Anthony Sher and his partner is exactly the same one who recently married Ferdie's beloved daughter.
Standing shoulder to shoulder alongside Mr Mount is the
Daily Mail's
Melanie Phillips, one of the trenchant campaigners for 'family values' who seem - distressingly for so many - to have lost the argument. The Office of National Statistics reported recently that it expected the number of unmarried people in Britain to outnumber the married for the first time by 2030.
Not that heterosexuals necessarily make a good advert for marriage. As a tabloid journalist, Melanie might be acquainted with the personal excitements of pop singer Britney Spears. Britney was for years a pin-up of neo-cons worldwide as an exemplar of their beloved abstinence before marriage. Even George Bush cited the singer as a role model for American youth.
Last year the star - who had actually been having intimate relations with fellow popster Justin Timberlake while being feted against her will as a teen-virgin - did demonstrate devotion of a sort to marriage, by getting heroically drunk one night and marrying a casual acquaintance - not Mr Timberlake - in a Las Vegas wedding chapel. Britney demonstrated an equally heroic penitence by getting divorced the next morning.
The columnists may bark, but the caravan of 21st-century Britain moves on. Perhaps one happy outcome of Stonewall's campaign for civil partnership has been the message it's given to a government all too often over-anxious about social reform. The roof has not fallen in, politically or socially. And it won't fall in tomorrow morning either.
For while politicians and so-called faith leaders might fret about an orgiastic decline in traditional values, this weekend, Auntie Maureen and Uncle Fred are cheerily awaiting an entirely unforeseen, and much welcome, postal delivery from their distant relatives. A clutch of wedding invitations.

Friday, December 02, 2005

I told them to call her Tracy...

...but Jennifer Garner and the man I'm surrogate father for insisted that they choose what my child should be called.

Still, take good care of her. :)

How true. How very, very true.

From yesterday's New York Times.

We've seen it before: an embattled president so swathed in his inner circle that he completely loses touch with the public and wanders around among small knots of people who agree with him. There was Lyndon Johnson in the 1960's, Richard Nixon in the 1970's, and George H. W. Bush in the 1990's. Now it's his son's turn.
It has been obvious for months that Americans don't believe the war is going just fine, and they needed to hear that President Bush gets that. They wanted to see that he had learned from his mistakes and adjusted his course, and that he had a measurable and realistic plan for making Iraq safe enough to withdraw United States troops. Americans didn't need to be convinced of Mr. Bush's commitment to his idealized version of the war. They needed to be reassured that he recognized the reality of the war.
Instead, Mr. Bush traveled 32 miles from the White House to the Naval Academy and spoke to yet another of the well-behaved, uniformed audiences that have screened him from the rest of America lately. If you do not happen to be a midshipman, you'd have to have been watching cable news at midmorning on a weekday to catch him.
The address was accompanied by a voluminous handout entitled "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," which the White House grandly calls the newly declassified version of the plan that has been driving the war. If there was something secret about that plan, we can't figure out what it was. The document, and Mr. Bush's speech, were almost entirely a rehash of the same tired argument that everything's going just fine. Mr. Bush also offered the usual false choice between sticking to his policy and beating a hasty and cowardly retreat.
On the critical question of the progress of the Iraqi military, the president was particularly optimistic, and misleading. He said, for instance, that Iraqi security forces control major areas, including the northern and southern provinces and cities like Najaf. That's true if you believe a nation can be built out of a change of clothing: these forces are based on party and sectarian militias that have controlled many of these same areas since the fall of Saddam Hussein but now wear Iraqi Army uniforms. In other regions, the most powerful Iraqi security forces are rogue militias that refuse to disarm and have on occasion turned their guns against American troops, like Moktada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.
Mr. Bush's vision of the next big step is equally troubling: training Iraqi forces well enough to free American forces for more of the bloody and ineffective search-and-destroy sweeps that accomplish little beyond alienating the populace.
What Americans wanted to hear was a genuine counterinsurgency plan, perhaps like one proposed by Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., a leading writer on military strategy: find the most secure areas with capable Iraqi forces. Embed American trainers with those forces and make the region safe enough to spend money on reconstruction, thus making friends and draining the insurgency. Then slowly expand those zones and withdraw American forces.
Americans have been clamoring for believable goals in Iraq, but Mr. Bush stuck to his notion of staying until "total victory." His strategy document defines that as an Iraq that "has defeated the terrorists and neutralized the insurgency"; is "peaceful, united, stable, democratic and secure"; and is a partner in the war on terror, an integral part of the international community, and "an engine for regional economic growth and proving the fruits of democratic governance to the region."
That may be the most grandiose set of ambitions for the region since the vision of Nebuchadnezzar's son Belshazzar, who saw the hand writing on the wall. Mr. Bush hates comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq. But after watching the president, we couldn't resist reading Richard Nixon's 1969 Vietnamization speech. Substitute the Iraqi constitutional process for the Paris peace talks, and Mr. Bush's ideas about the Iraqi Army are not much different from Nixon's plans - except Nixon admitted the war was going very badly (which was easier for him to do because he didn't start it), and he was very clear about the risks and huge sacrifices ahead.
A president who seems less in touch with reality than Richard Nixon needs to get out more.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Cindy Crawford: now that's a woman! (With apologies to Hollywood Tuna...)

...who redeemed themselves for their Alba comments by using the above headline (non-brackets section) when talking about Cindy in Maxim.
And if Earl of Grey is reading this, a) drop dead and b) here are some more images to remind you what a supermodel looks like. Note the lack of resemblance to the egocrazed freak of nature that is Janice Dickinson.

http://img429.imageshack.us/my.php?image=crawfordcindycdec05fm45131ru.jpg

http://img429.imageshack.us/my.php?image=crawfordcindycdec05fm4512b0xo.jpg

http://img516.imageshack.us/my.php?image=crawfordcindycdec05fm45158bl.jpg

http://img206.imageshack.us/my.php?image=crawfordcindycdec05fm451109ql.jpg

http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?image=crawfordcindycdec05fm451118af.jpg

They're from C magazine, which along with Singapore Harper's Bazaar is something I must get hold of. Somehow.
Adrienne Curry and Tyra Banks, meets America's Permanent Top Model.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Dear Sarah, Forget about a Christmas card this year. Yours, Victor.

It's been a whole heap o'trouble since the new people took over Ashurst. Space issues, wage issues, jobs being delayed, and Sarah (the woman who apparently is in charge) spending most of her time in Yorkshire or some such place.
Maybe if she and Lincoln (or as the production manager once put it, the fat cunt) were down here more often - like every day - they might get some idea. Especially with the courtyard; rubbish piling up because they're too cheap to get it collected weekly, cardboard taking up more space under the new recycling system than under the old (no more throwing it into a huge container that takes ages to fill up and is easy to negotiate around; no, they would much rather have them go into smaller containers that fill up quicker and mean they have to go into yorks, which take up even more space).
And where's this PC I've been promised for months, eh? We'd better get one hell of a bonus, that's all I'm saying.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Previously on listings:

To add to Cindy Crawford, Jessica Alba, Monica Bellucci, Hilary Duff, Mariah Carey, Gwen Stefani, Nicole Kidman, Laetitia Casta, Britney Spears and Rosanna Arquette...

Nicollette Sheridan. Hope the Housewife who reportedly is due for the chop isn't her.
Gwyneth Paltrow. Estee Lauder reminded me.
Jennifer Love Hewitt. Even though Patricia Arquette is better on Medium than JLH may well be on Ghost Whisperer (unlike Medium, it's not on in the UK yet), she is unquestionably hotter.
Liv Tyler. Even if she's been hiding since the Trilogy ended.
Shakira. Her performance at the MTV Music Video Awards is enough to get her here.
Jessica Biel. Not as good as t'other Jessica, but that ass is too delicious to ignore.
Paula Abdul. Still a fox.
Nicole Schertzinger from the Pussycat Dolls. Stickwither.
Lindsay Lohan. Would have been on the C-list, but after the AMAs...
Devon Aoki. For being the hottest person in Sin City not called guess who.

Due for consideration; everyone else in Sin City, Amanda Righetti, Kelly Monaco, Erica Campbell, Sophie Anderton, Lucy Pinder, and Famke Janssen (again)...

The next and last part.

"You're wanted by Mr. Herbert," the girl grinned at me.
It had to be bad news. The crawling little creep was every teacher's pet, and she never looked at anyone that way unless they were being called on the carpet. And I had been slipping a bit in a couple of classes; maybe he just wanted to give me a warning. That always worked.

My misplaced optimism vanished the minute I entered the headmaster's office. He was sitting behind his desk, tapping a large envelope, and giving me an expression that indicated I was not about to like what he was going to say.
"Young man, I'm not one to waste words," he said calmly, and upended the envelope. Out dropped a glossy magazine that I recognised immediately; one of the kind that had buff young men on the cover. There was what looked like a bookmark sticking out of it - he pointed to the mark.
Opening it, I saw a double-page spread of myself on my front, looking at the camera and smiling with my ass spread apart, letting the readers see everything as a climax for the preceding several pages. So Bradley had sold them...
"One of your classmates has a parent who reads that... material," Mr. Herbert said. "Apparently you've been making a habit of that around here."
I said nothing.

"I suppose your parents have no idea?"
I still said nothing. But it was true; they didn't. Or at least, I thought they didn't.

"You'll have to leave this school, of course," he continued.
I just nodded. I should have known this would happen sooner or later - this was a small place, and it was amazing that my secret reputation as the boy the other boys wanted hadn't come out before now. Maybe because I had been making shy overtures to girls, and getting turned down - making me look like yet another frustrated horndog.
I wasn't looking forward to the next few days. I didn't know who'd spilled the beans, and I didn't care. I just knew I had to get out of there.


* * * * * * * * * *

"So where are you going to go?" Terry asked me. "Thrown out of home, thrown out of school..."
"Oh, I've got somewhere to go," I said, smiling shyly. "Have a look." I handed him another magazine. "It was the last one I did around here before they found me out."
Terry looked inside, and his eyes widened. "Your first with another guy?"
"Yep. It was fun... and it wasn't all posed."
"You're turning into quite the slut, kid."
"But it's fun to be wanted," I admitted. "The editors said they keep getting letters wanting to see more of me, and I did get asked about..." I couldn't help smiling. "...about making a video."

"And are you going to do it? You go this way you won't get any action with girls..."
"Oh, I will. I want to be fully bi on screen."
"But have you ever fucked a girl in real life?"
I had to admit I hadn't.

That was four years ago, and to this day I still haven't... not yet. But I kept posing now that I was out of the island, and I've been busy in front of moving and still cameras ever since. And the fan mail keeps on a-coming; teenage boys saying they knew I was gay when they saw me, married men who say they think of me when they're fucking their wives, wives who think of me when they're with their husbands. And bi's who love how I don't mind sleeping with either sex on screen or in magazines. And letters from Bradley, who stayed behind (I never told them who took those first pics, and the magazines refused to rat him out - he gets 10% of what I get).

And letters from girls who think I'm wasted on men; they want to change me.
They're wasting their time... like I said before, if I make guys happy, that's fine with me.
Like JK here; I met him a couple of years ago - we've been friends for a while now. Last year we started seeing if friends could sleep with friends and still remain friends.
My friend's on his knees in front of me now... ohhhhhhhh.... mmmmm.... good boy.

My New Year's resolutions, 39 days early.

And actually made for once (I usually never do, but this time...)

1. To update this blog more often.
2. To pay my rent on time. Without cheques.
3. To write more, the way Kira's Slave is.
4. To go to the pictures twice a week, even if it means going to non-Cineworld cinemas and therefore actually having to pay rather than use my Unlimited card.
5. To buy a multi-region DVD player.
6. To get a phone put in.
7. To be a better person.

Monday, November 21, 2005

Cheers to Just Jared...

...who, by dint of posting them, gets a link just for that. :)

And moving on, the B-Team rethinking: Nicole Kidman gets in the A-list, not Jessica B. Also in the running for the next 20: at least one of the housewives of desperation (clue: not Felicity Huffman), most of the female cast of Sin City not called Jessica (or Jaime King - sorrry), Shakira, and Famke Janssen. Stay tuned.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Superman has returned.

Judging from the teaser trailer. And I know that's what they're supposed to do - but hell, after that imposter Dean Cain and Smallville, it's about time we had a Man of Steel that wasn't rethought for some generation.

Shame it won't be done with John Williams though, but John Ottman's better than nothing.

Of course, it's only temporary until I remember that I came thisclose to being evicted this weekend because of rent arrears. And that I wasted £3.95 on December Esquire (don't ask, KS. Just don't ask.)

And that the December Maxim hasn't turned up here yet. I really hope the latter is the cover it actually has.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Thank you, God.

A raise, double discs of Lost in Space and Silverado, and now this. I thought Christmas and my birthday were next month.

Note to Butch: You should have told me the second you found out.

Note to Borders and the rest: December Maxim. US edition, not UK. NOW.

Monday, November 14, 2005

A Garner fan writes...

...JenG is mine, ALL MINE!!! :)) ;->>

I've elected to"protect" her from my portion of last year's list (would've done so sooner, except I've been unable to write/message the last few days due to other commitments, business), along with Charlize Theron, Elle Macpherson, Halle Berry, Cameron Diaz, Angelina Jolie, Elizabeth Hurley, Scarlett Johansson, Maria Menounos, Salma Hayek, Josie Maran, Estella Warren,Kim Basinger, Lauren Graham, Uma Thurman, and Kate Winslet (everyone else is up for grabs, though; expect my list to look quite different this year)...

So it seems like you'll have to "settle" for the second-sexiest Jessica out there to fill your Top 10 (I'm still mulling over the last two spots for my part)... ;-))

Now, was the above written by
a) Butch Rosser,
b) Donald Rumsfeld,
c) MuffinMan,
or d) Jennifer Orangio? Answers on a postcard...

I reluctantly promote She Who Is Probably Very, Very Glad She Left 7th Heaven Now to the top 10, and turn to 11-20...

Friday, November 11, 2005

I'm going to get MuffinMan to post more if it kills me.

List-time again... I'm due to send MM my top picks for the past year, but rather than write to him I'll post them here, so's you can all watch it develop Before Your Very Eyes. First off, the upper reaches, the Top 10 for what the House of Mouse likes to call MMV:

Cindy Crawford. Well, duh.
Jessica Alba. More or less see above.
Monica Bellucci. Regardless of her actual age.
Hilary Duff. Even though she's been legal under various State laws in the US since 2003, this year I can finally include her without the Man of Muffins complaining.
Mariah Carey. Yes, still.
Gwen Stefani. No matter how hard I try.
Jennifer Garner. Even after Elektra.
Laetitia Casta. Also yes, still.
Britney Spears. Because I owe it to her.
Rosanna Arquette. Because she was my first. And she's still a dish.

Jessica Biel would unquestionably have made the Top 10 had Esquire not anointed her. But she'll be in the B-Team. MuffinMan, over to you...

Thursday, November 10, 2005

One step closer.

The tracklist for the Silverado soundtrack as released in 1985 on LP (first five tracks on side one):
:
1. Silverado Main Title (4:44)
2. The Getaway/Riding As One (4:26)
3. Ezra's Death (1:52)
4. The McKendrick Attack (1:36)
5. Augie Is Taken (2:36)
6. On To Silverado (6:22)
7. Augie's Rescue (3:00)
8. Goodbye, Cobb (2:04)
9. End Credits ("We'll Be Back") (4:20)


As issued on CD in 1993:

1. Silverado Main Title 4:47
2. To Turley 2:43
3. The Getaway / Riding As One 4:21
4. Ezra's Death 1:53
5. The McKendrick Attack 1:38
6. Augie Is Taken 2:36
7. On To Silverado 6:26
8. This Oughta Do 4:51
9. Augie's Rescue 6:36
10. Slick, Then McKendrick 4:03
11. Goodbye, Cobb 2:06
12. End Credits (We'll Be Back) 4:22


And now, as reissued this year:

CD One (48:03)
1. Main Title 4:46
2. Paden's Horse 1:33
3. Tyree & Turley 3:39
4. That Ain't Right 1:13
5. Paden's Hat 3:37
6. The Getaway/Riding As One 6:07
7. Den of Thieves 1:46
8. The Strongbox Rescue 1:53
9. On to Silverado 6:23
10. McKendrick's Men 1:24
11. Ezra's Death 1:52
12. An Understanding Boss 1:47
13. Party Crashers 1:37
14. Tyree and Paden 0:52
15. McKendrick's Brand 0:50
16. You're Empty, Mister/Emmet's Rescue 3:43
17. Behind the Church 1:15
18. Augie is Taken 2:36
CD Two (38:01)
1. Worried About the Dog 2:07
2. Prelude to a Battle 4:50
3. McKendrick Waits/The Stampede/Finishing at McKendrick's 8:24
4. Hide and Watch/Jake Gets Tyree/Then Slick, Then McKendrick 9:30
5. Goodbye, Cobb 2:05
6. We'll Be Back (End Credits) 4:22
Bonus Tracks
7. The Bradley Place 1:48
8. Jake Gets Tyree (Original Version) 2:15
9. The Silverado Waltz 2:03


One question for all of you all: with the Silverado soundtrack finally getting a complete release and bringing me a step closer to getting all the CDs I most want expanded actually expanded (someone do Back to the Future dammit!), any CDs that you'd fork out the cash for if they were equally expanded? Come on, there has to be something... we've all got our Holy Grails.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

She didn't.

He's helping her out. In a financial sense. Which she deserves.
So are others. Which is good.
But I will post the happiest blogging in all creation when Sharon finally kicks the BBC to the kerb.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Hope she means it this time.

This weekend I spent some time with Sharon. Good woman, sensitive, caring, some weird taste in entertainment (she liked The Cat In The Hat. The abortion with Mike Myers, that is) but fine all round; she can be a bit of a jerk sometimes but that's family for you. Anyway, she told me that she wants to (drumroll)... finish it with the BBC. (That's the name I've decided to give her bf, since just thinking about his name makes me want to rip my own eyes out in rage; typing it would mean I'd be dead before I finished this post. And why "the BBC"? Because of their handling of Rome (too long to go into now; info , response and more company-line... er, response here), among other things.)
Anyway, Sharon's said such things about the BBC before, and it didn't come to anything. But hopefully she'll mean it this time, especially since it ties in to November 5th. For many people in the UK, the date signifies the unsuccessful attempt to blow up Parliament and the subsequent excuse for loads of fireworks and burnings of effigys of Guy Fawkes (one of the conspirators). For Sharon and the other members of the family, it'll always be the date she miscarried and lost Lena Rose (although she told me she feels it's actually on the Tuesday nearest that date, since it was on a Tuesday that it happened). Remember, remember the fifth of November indeed.
However, the BBC hasn't been the most thoughtful person ever about it - I admit it bothered me a bit a year or two ago, but I know she still has to feel it, and I know she'll always have something missing where her firstborn daughter should be. But for him to tell her she needs to get over it... especially since he was the child's father... you would think he, of all people, would not be so fucking insensitive.
I've always thought the BBC was unceasingly cuntish anyway, but this is a low. I really hope she does snap it off with him.

I really need to start watching Smallville.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Monday, October 31, 2005

The fourth part.

As Baxley thrust himself deeper into me, I felt the first boy's cock pumping into my throat; as soon as he was out and leaving his cream behind, another prick took its place. I started sucking that and the still-unfulfilled other prick, knowing that I wouldn't be out of here until I had sucked all ten boys here... and until they, in turn, had blown me.
The youngest of the lot had crawled under me and was tasting my own cock, groaning over it as he licked the full length. Squeezed in next to him was another one, moving his mouth back and forth from one of my sacs to the next, and all the while the cock inside me kept pounding away. "MMmmmm..."I mumbled over the penises, excited at the way they felt on my tongue and at how Baxley's prick was starting to drip in me. "Ohhhhhh...MMMMMMMMAAARRRR!!!"
"Oh yes Vic... fuck yes... you've got an ass to die for here....!!!!" Baxley's voice shot up as he filled me up, slapping against me as he came, becoming the first boy to fuck my no-longer-virgin ass. As he pulled out and gave me one last slap, I didn't even have time to come down before I felt another pair of hands. A blissful smile, lightly covered with drops of the come from the boys I'd just made come in my mouth, came to me...

* * * * * * * * * *

I don't know how long it took before the boys had had their fill, but I do know that later on I was upstairs, asleep on Baxley's bed. The others had left, and Baxley had let me rest up until I was ready, sticky and sweaty, but happy.

Slumbering, moving in and out of sleep, I was thinking about how things would change now. Now I knew about what some of them held secret, I could either hold it over their heads or just let it lie there... power was wonderful, and sexual power was the most wonderful of all. At least one of the guys who'd pounded his cock in me loved boasting about all the girls he'd fucked - now I knew he was full of it...
No. No blackmail. In and out of slumber I had seen images of girls in my head from time to time, and I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd been left limp by all of them. But I wasn't. Maybe he still liked girls, maybe he was pretending. The thing was, I wasn't going to say someone - anyone - was gay if they weren't. I myself was in the middle, and loving it.
The last thing some of the guys had said to me before leaving was something about next time. That was the last thing that went through my head before I felt two hands on my back. Two older hands. Two older hands belonging to someone who thought I was asleep.
Two older hands moving down my back towards my trousers. "...nice botsy..." the man who thought I was asleep grunted. "...sexy botsy... beautiful botsy.. beautiful big botsy..."
I knew that voice. It was Baxley's dad; I was willing to bet it wasn't the first time he'd done something like this. And he probably thought I was asleep as he pressed his hard cock against my cleft.

He grunted as he thrust forward, his hand slipping under me to stroke my cock as he moved. "Good boy... gorgeous boy..." he groaned, fucking me for the first time that morning, thinking I was asleep, and thinking that I would have tried to escape if I was.
He was wrong on both counts.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Hey, Victor."
Scott slapped my shoulder with an envelope. "That's yours."
"What for?" I asked.

"For last week. By the way, Bradley wants to meet you." Scott gave my ass a discreet squeeze before sidling away, freeing me to peer into the envelope and widening my eyes at what was inside; some little folded coloured pieces of paper that I recognised instantly, and a note next to them.
Vic -
You earned it.
B
Making boys - and increasingly men - happy, and getting paid for it. And no more teasing; they knew how to keep their mouths shut.
Or most of them did. If I'd known that another classmate had gotten another envelope linked to me, I might not have been so cheerful.

If KS is still interested - and other random ramblings.

I've decided to send him those CDs. The player might have to wait, though. (He knows what I'm talking about.)
Meanwhile, it should have occurred to me before. Annoying voice, grating mannerisms, always off work, saying the dumbest things possible, unwavering belief in own correctness... no wonder Esther is a Bush supporter; barring her being black, from Africa, very fat, poor and not in the White House, they're like two peas in a pod.
Weeds is still not pulling me in yet. I'm beginning to think Mary-Louise Parker might have to do a nude scene like she did in Angels in America for me to hang on for all of this season.
And finally... that's it.

End of the most senseless post of any blog ever?

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Is it okay if I bitch a bit? It is? Oh good.

I hate the fact that our new bosses paid us in cheques last week. Cheques.
I hate how Abbey National waits three business days to clear them.
And charges £30 for every time my account goes into debit.
I hate that Veronica Mars is ending next week and Britain's Next Top Model isn't.
I hate how my prescription's going to arrive after I've run out of one of the pills.
I hate how no one will dare assassinate the Smirk because then Dick Cheney'll be the Commander-in-Chief.
I hate how one homeworker drops by to give us his stuff so early in the fucking morning.
I hate the mere mention of the name "Doctor Who."
I hate how multi-region DVD players aren't widely available in Britain.

I hate being almost as slow as Mr. B, writing-wise.
I hate certain Firefly fans for insisting that Serenity was a hit long after it became clear it wasn't.
I hate Charlotte Church more and more every day.

I like Nicollette Sheridan's Maxim spread, Brooke Burke's calendar and Assa Guerrass ((c) Jennifer Orangio) naked.

The end.

When I was 23, it was a very good year...

It was a very good year for discovering that there were more people who bought the wares of Varese Sarabande and Intrada and La-La Land and so on. And for discovering that there was actually a magazine for people interested in such things, the wonderful Film Score Monthly. Now this was what I was talking about... Lukas Kendall, R. Mike Murray, Jeff Bond and the rest were regulars in my reading material from then on. Even when it eventually stopped being monthly, and became Film Score Magazine.

Of all the magazines I ever bought, or subscribed to when it became hard to get hold of in London (if this is the world's greatest city, why are there hardly any soundtrack stores here, eh?), this is the only one that I have every issue of since I started getting it back in 1993, even unto buying every available back issue to fill the gaps. So it was not a pleasure when it was announced that the next print issue will be the last; now there's only Music from the Movies left (Soundtrack! expired some time ago), which isn't the same. True, the website as linked to below will continue, but...

Sweetening the blow? All subscribers get one free CD per three issues or part thereof remaining on their subscription - FSM moved into soundtrack production a few years ago, and it's now a major part of their bread-and-butter. So bags me The Appointment (with the rejected score, the used score, and the television rescore) and The Egyptian (the Batman Begins of its day inasmuch as it was a teaming of two A-list composers). And then more of their stuff, before they eventually run out (they only do limited runs of everything).

As to why there's a link to Hayden Panettiere and Paris Hilton - well, it's my blog...

Thursday, October 20, 2005

The Cindy Spot: The last one.

Wait wait wait... it's not the last time I'm ever going to be mentioning Cynthia Ann Crawford. She hasn't crossed the line into please-fuck-off-foreverhood (lifetime president: Madonna. Second-in-command: Christina Aguileraisacunt) that Charlotte Church has, nor has she gone into a nunnery or something.

It's just that after consistently failing to write that "column" regularly, the best thing is to just rename the blog. Making everything a Cindy Spot and solving the problem, and leaving the Cindy Inc. name for my stories. And also giving me something to wash the sight of Paris Hilton naked (albeit probably Photoshopped that way) out of my mind.

So to make the blog-only stories debut, any requests? Apart from the obvious ones. (And if Jen is reading this, Laura Prepon works for the opposition. Sorry.)

Well, at least I've got something in common with Jen.

You are Lamentations
You are Lamentations.

Which book of the Bible are you?
As they used to say on American TV shows, "brought to you by..."

Monday, October 17, 2005

What's the difference between "Totally Scott-Lee" and Sonic the Hedgehog?

Sonic the Hedgehog has a discernible point. Several, in fact. :)

Before I go into meltdown over this MTV-hogging no-talent ex-member of the ex-pop group Steps (trust me, you don't want to know about Lisa Scott-Lee. You really don't), let's talk about something else.

Like my managing to do the rent for the month early for once.

Or communicating with another Cindy-lover over on Superiorpics (called IloveJLH, which shows excellent taste).

Or wondering why LivingTV is burning off Veronica Mars on weekdays and dithering over Ghost Whisperer (which is right up their supernatural alley - buy it, dammit! It probably won't be as good as Medium, but it's got Jennifer Love Hewitt!).

Or discussing 2006 calendars.

Okay, let's do the calendars. If Cindy still did official calendars, she'd be in like a shot. But sadly she stopped years ago. (It's not like she hasn't got the body for it. Trust me.)

The Charmed one would normally be a shoo-in, like it wasthe last two years, but this year Brian Krause and some new guy managed to worm their way onto it, thus causing this to break my most important rule about calendars: No Guys Allowed. Ever. I am a single man; when I wake up I want to see something pleasant, something which will give me some nice thoughts to start the day. No one with a penis who is not a shemale has that capability. (There are probably fans of The O.C. who feel that way about Rachel and Co., which is why there's a separate one about the lads of said show.)

No pets, no countries, no flowers... and no modes of transportation. All out.

I also don't like cartoon calendars on walls, so I have to pass on The Simpsons. (Probably the only time I will ever arrange those words in that order.)

So we're back to the eye candy. The Lost, Alias and Desperate Housewives calendars all fall by the wayside for that same reason as Charmed (big plus: waking up to Maggie Grace, Jennifer Garner or Eva Longoria. Big minus: waking up to just about any of the guys, but especially Naveen Andrews [facial hair? Ugh], Victor Garber or that one who plays Carlos); no soap babes will ever adorn my walls; and since Britney has been unable to do a calendar this year for obvious reasons, that accounts for the singers (Kylie Minogue? Jessica Simpson? Rachel Stevens? Get out).

Models? No chance - I couldn't live with myself if I put up Abi Titmuss or Lucy Pinder (with or without Michelle Marsh). And as for Jordan...


So we're left with actresses (and I bet you can see where this is going). And who's the final choice? Um... yes, that's right... the Alba. (Not official, but better than nothing. Especially since the only other option is the Fantastic Four calendar. Too many Y-chromosomes.)

More homoerotic porn during the week.

The continuation.... still can't think of a title.

There were about ten of them there, all bunching in up close to me as if we were in the world's smallest locker room, rather than the generously sized living room of one of their houses. My ego swelled on seeing that some of them had swellings lower down...
They soon had their hands on me, some on my chest, some on my legs, one or two on my crotch. "Hey, wait a minute guys," I laughed, "you'll all get some... and NO TEARING! You want people to start asking questions?"
Rogers let go my shirt as the others let me start to strip. They waited all of four seconds before tugging the rest of my clothes off, until I was lying there, the only naked guy in the room with ten horny boys. Just what Charlotte Cambridge always wanted, I bet.

"Fuck me," Baxley moaned, freeing his throbbing rod from his jeans and letting them drop to the floor as the other boys stripped. "You tell anyone about this---"
"---and you'll kill me, I know, I know," I said casually. "Now who wants to go first?"

I knew I shouldn't have said that. They landed on me, grabbing and kissing what they could find, and lifting me off the sofa. Within seconds, I found myself unable to get air - because Rogers and Kelly had rammed their cocks into my mouth, black and white blending together in my damp mouth. As I sucked and swallowed their lengths, the heads rubbing against each other inside my mouth, my hands were busy stroking Riley and Foster's organs, pulling them as if I was thinking about the Adderley sisters, but this time with added groans from the guys.
Kisses and caresses were landing on my sides from Tony, Simon, Francis, Richard and Dennis. They were murmuring comments about my legs when not stroking them with their cocks. It wouldn't be long before I felt them get covered with something sticky.
And Baxley? With his hands spreading my ass open and something smooth being put around my opening, I knew what was coming.
When he slammed it in, soon it would be me....

Some more of the below.

This time without Presley or Kaia. For the most part.

Imagine her with your favourite together. (Warning: May not work if you are strictly gay.)

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

The third part... I'll think of a title.

"It's okay, this won't take long," Bradley assured me, as I got down on the sand, the trees keeping us from being seen by anyone. In any case, since I wasn't a girl I could get dressed and out of there very quickly. "Just two shots."
"One from the front and one from behind, right?" I asked, smiling.

"You haven't done this before, have you?" Bradley replied, snapping me lying there, a teasing smile on my face and my hand on my fully-erect cock as if I was about to jack right there.
I didn't say anything as I turned around and spread them. Just for his private collection, I figured. Right?

* * * * * * * * * *


I came into school a lot happier. Since that little session a month or two ago, Bradley and his friends had in fact eased up on the teasing, and it was starting to show in my attitude - less tense, more relaxed. Hell, I'd even been invited to go to one of my classmates' places after class to play some games, listen to some music... I was happy to do it. Sometimes it's good to be accepted.
Andrew Baxter drove us to his place himself, and it was with a happy heart that I finished my drink a couple of hours later - still nothing strong, but otherwise in a party mood. "Here's to video violence!" I shouted, toasting the other boys.
"Here's to Vic!" the lad sitting next to me crowed, and the others all joined in.
"But I'm not the star of this thing..." I pointed out.
"Oh, but you are, Vic... you are," Baxter said amiably. "It's all about you. Ever since that time with you and Simon."
I blanched at that. Simon had been the most unrepetant of my tormentors. And the most quiet ever since the week after Bradley's pictures, after he'd come up to me and told me that if I did him a favour, he'd do me a favour. The favour I did him was letting him swallow me; the favour he did me was never bothering me again.

Bradley, at least, had never shown anyone my bid for Numbers magazine; but Simon had apparently let the word out among his friends. Knowing him, he probably told them I liked it.
And as the boys started crowding around me, I knew he was right...

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Ladies and gentlemen, I support terrorist activities.

One of the adverts you see in British cinemas is one exhorting you not, I repeat, NOT to buy fake DVDs. They used to have a version in which they told you that by supporting such people you were indirectly financing criminals all over the world, but this approach has gone by the wayside.

The point is, I avoid pirate DVDs. The way I used to avoid pirate videos (which were, and are, all over the place down in Barbados - I'm not going to lie to you and say I never watched any, but ultimately I'll always go for the real thing). And the way I tend to avoid bootleg soundtracks... what, you didn't think there were such things? Hell, yeah - complete editions, unauthorised releases, you name it. I usually manage to avoid them... but not always.

This might not be important to you, but it was a bummer to me to find out from a reliable source that a CD that I have, a promo of Basil Poledouris music, is actually a bootleg. A very convincing one, at that. I hate it when that happens... now I can't listen to it without feeling pretty bad. This weekend's sucked pretty much for this kind of thing - I got Rocky and Rocky III on CD while forgetting I already had the latter on cassette.

Anyone want two discs free of charge? :(

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

The second part.

"What time?" I asked.
"Not here, for a start," Bradley replied. "You'll catch your death of cold out here."
It was true; Caribbean nights could get pretty cold.

"Meet me tomorrow morning. My place. 7."
"Seven in the morning? But your mum--"
"Not at my house... the one on the beach."
Bradley was lucky enough to be living by the beach; I was lucky enough to be able to walk down there. I had a feeling my parents wouldn't quite get it if I asked one of them to give me a lift. I nodded.

"See you tomorrow, bubble butt," he smiled.
Now I knew how some of the girls at school felt.

* * * * * * * * * *

Walking down towards Bradley's house, I kept my eyes out for the path that would take me down to the beach. It was a public area, but at this time of the day there wouldn't be many people there. So hardly anyone would be able to hear me if...
"Stop it, Victor!" I told myself. Bradley and his friends might be jerks, but they weren't going to make me disappear. From the way he had looked at me, he was either a really good actor or he really wanted to... play with me. And I had seen the fifth form's play; it had to be the latter.
All the way home and all through the night I had been thinking about what had happened. All my life, and even right now, I'd be turned on by girls but had never really brought up the nerve to go near any - as a result, the only F-word a lot of them used around me was the really bad one. Friend. The idea that any of them might have seen me as a sex object had never occurred to me; and now here was an upper classman telling me that I was turning other guys on. They weren't trying to pinch my ass or look at my legs (thank goodness I didn't have to wear shorts anymore!), but it was weird to think that someone was looking at me and licking their lips the way I'd done with Nicole Ince. Except the lips thing of course... The whole thing was kind of weird.
And yet, it was also kind of flattering. Okay, I wasn't getting anything from girls, but it was kind of good to know that someone liked me. And if I was giving someone pleasure, who cared whether or not that someone had a prick? My mind was made up as I got to Bradley's beach house and knocked on the door.

"Come on in, Victor!"
He wasn't calling me Vicky anymore, like he had done sometimes to piss me off. Better. I pushed open the door and went inside, getting out of the early morning rays and greeted by Bradley's nicely furnished pad. And Bradley himself, standing there with a camera and a tripod.

"Bright and early... let's get started," he beamed, seeing me seeing the camera. "You know what this is for."
I knew. And running was the last thing on my mind. Sighing, I started to undo my clothes, a smile coming onto my face as I got myself to relax. Bradley's grin got wider as he kept snapping me all around his place, shedding more and more of my clothes and revealing more of my dark body, chatting to him as I did, feeling my reservations slipping away along with my clothes. I never took part in sports, so neither he nor anyone else had had a chance to look at me in the showers; this was easier than I had thought it would be.
Finally, with Bradley nodding approvingly and snapping away, I looked at him over my shoulder and lowered my underwear, letting him see me naked and ready, and got down to the fully-buff posing.

Mum and Dad would kill me if they knew what I was doing, but the way I was seeing it, stripping off for this guy was a win-win situation. If my body made him (and whoever he showed those pictures to) happy, then they'd leave me alone.
And me? I was living out a fantasy.

The Cindy Spot: Dear Heather Mills, fuck off. Cheers, Victor.

Call me unreasonable, but after all these years I still get deeply pissed off when Cindy gets attacked for any reason not actually involving her taking a human life.

This, plus the fact that we've already gone through Cindy's views on fur (which I thought were already behind us). So I really can't get that bothered over Mrs. McCartney's broadside, well-intentioned though it is. Cindy's made her position clear, so leave her (and the others) the fuck alone. This is why I can't tolerate PETA either; bunch of self-righteous dung beetles.

To make up for it, the above link takes you to all the POP pictures, including this one with the bald guy. At least, I hope it does. But beware of pop-ups...

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

An open letter to Kelly Brook.

Dear Kelly,

Now look, I'm sure you're a very nice person and I don't blame you for letting Maxim promote you as "the new Cindy Crawford," but I'm wondering... do you, by any chance, have a twin sister? I ask because I'm sure someone who'd go to court to stop producers from including scenes of yourself nude and having sex in Three wouldn't think of posing for Arena in pictures like this.

That would be hypocritical. Eye-opening, but hypocritical. (And people complain about Jessica's see-through dress.)

All the best,
Victor

P.S. If anyone reading this wants to know who Kelly Brook is, an explanatory blogging can be arranged.

Monday, October 03, 2005

My hair! My beautiful hair!

This weekend I found...

that Thornton's penchant for making chocolates suitable for diabetics is marred only by the note about possible laxative effects being less of a threat than a promise.

that having a street festival on Oxford Street to celebrate shoppers coming back after the July 7 bombings serves only to screw up traffic for the second Saturday in a row, and with even less reason than the anti-Bush (and Blair, but chiefly Bush) demonstrations last week. (And has it dawned on these people that since the one person who really needs to get the message has spent the past five years paying no attention whatsoever to anyone disagreeing with him, he's unlikely to start listening now? So everybody loses.)

that I should have updated my card details with PayPal earlier, dammit.

that Kelly Brook's nude Arena spread is lovely, but I still can't warm to her. (See next post.)

that I still don't like getting my hair cut. I like my hair; it keeps my head warm, and I look less grim with it. Still, if Sharon is reading this (ha!) she'll be pleased to know that it was at a black barber this time, and at least I won't have to get it done again this year.

that I can't get AIM launched at some internet places (I did try).

that it's good to hear from friends.

No title, just a story; or the start of one.

"Hey Fifi."
That was all I had been hearing for the past three weeks at school. Always from the boys, never the girls thank goodness - it was always some guy calling me Fifi. In classes, at lunch, going home... bloody Fifi.
I had no idea who the guy was who'd started it; it just seemed to be some instantaneous thing. Okay, maybe I was a bit of a soft guy - didn't speak much, didn't like sports, kind of sensitive, and thankfully had pulled off an excusal from the thing thanks to my bad feet - but I was hardly a dandy. But there they were, going Fifi all the time. Why I didn't try and beat them up, I don't know.
I glared at Anderson, grinning at me from under his glasses and handing me a note. As he ran away I opened it up.

Victor,
If you want them to stop teasing you, meet me on the playing field 5:30pm.

No signature on it; and it was typed out, so I couldn't even guess from the handwriting. Still, it wasn't like I didn't have anything better to do. And if worst came to worst, I knew I could run pretty damn fast when I had to...

* * * * * * * * * * *

I don't like being late for anything, even exams. I got on the sports field behind the school at 5:28, figuring I'd probably be kept waiting for -
"Hey, Victor."
I tensed up on recognising that voice. It was Bradley; he was one of the more persistent members of the Fifi Brigade. And smug with it. And wherever he was, his friends were sure to go... he saw in my eyes that I was about to run.

"It's not a trap, man," he said quietly.
From his eyes, I could tell he wasn't kidding. Still, what did he want with me? Was he going to make me part of some fantastic plan? Was he going to tell me that he'd been bullied too and tell me how to get my own back? Was he -
"I can get those guys off your back no trouble," he told me.
"But it'll cost me, right?"
"I don't want your money, Victor," Bradley laughed. "I just want to tell you something. And then for you to do me a favour. That's why I wanted it out here, so no one would find out about us."
"What do you mean, us? And what did you want to tell me?"
"I mean me and... the other guys. We think you've got a lovely ass."
This caught me offguard, and I edged away a bit. But only a bit.

"The way you keep walking around here, wiggling it like a girl... that's why we keep calling you Fifi all the time. You talk like a boy, but you move like a girl."
"And you want me to stop?" I asked.

Bradley came closer to me. "I want you. Just once, and they'll never bug you again." He put a hand on my shoulder and smiled a little.
I looked back at my former tormentor and gulped a little. "Just one time?"
"Just once. Unless you change your mind..."
"That won't happen," I lied, although I didn't know it yet.