Come, my magic stomach...

Yesterday was my lovely big brother's 22nd birthday. I find this unbelievable, since i remember making him a sticker for his 7th birthday with a big number 7 on it, because that seemed like really old to me.


Simon and i are pretty close, i talk to him via text, facebook, msn or phone a couple of times a day, and this weekend i get to shoot him with a paintball gun. He's my big brother and i love him, even though his feet always smell faintly of TCP, and he likes to beat me up in public.




Today was my beautiful and charming Virtual godmother's birthday. She's Simon's actual godmother, but she looks after me and as we talk mainly over the internet, the virtual tag kind of stuck. She tells awesome bedtime stories and is the person who first told me about Phillip Pullman, and Freaks and Geeks, and all kinds of other very cool things.


I love her because she's not just my mum's friend who talks to me when my mum's around, she's my friend, and we talk about stuff that my mum doesn't, like Buffy and Coconut Records. We are friends on our own terms, and i hope that never changes.


I hope they both had lovely birthdays, because they both make my time on earth happier by hanging out in it with me.

When I'm 64...

When i get old i've decided that I'm gonna be like Maud from Harold and Maude, but living in the city, and without the pubescent boy toy. When i'm old, my husband will look and dress like this


and i will still wear high heels and have iron grey hair and we will drink espresso or peroni at sidewalk cafes and we will laugh.

Any Savage can Dance

Yesterday at write club hardly anyone brought anything to read, so we did a writing exercise. Basically we all thought of a theme or sentence, and then wrote about it. The sentence the group came up with was "any savage can dance," a thought expressed by Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. We then had 5 minutes to write something based around that idea. I was pretty pleased with what i came up with, so i thought i'd post it. It's not very long, and completely unedited, so you get to see how my brain works under creative pressure to produce. Hope you like it.

Any Savage Can Dance

Standing on the floor,
Surrounded by amazons in 6 inch stilettos, throbbing drums beating our chests,
We move.
We sway and shake.
We are sexy and we know it and so do they.
We see them moving in, all hair gel and too much lynx, and we move.
We shake and sway away;
And they pursue.
Stalking us across the floor, past herds of copy-cats.
They are on the prowl, the hunt.
Any savage can dance, but we want more.
We shake to the beat of the throbbing drum in skin tight seduction put on to please,
To tease.
We bait the trap and wait for them to bite,
And they always do.
Any savage can dance, but we want more, and so we sway.

It's not really a poem, but it's not really prose. The line breaks are more to do with the speed at which the lines should be read. I was focused more on the rhythm of the words, on alliteration and a little bit of internal rhyme, which i don't normally really consider. I also wanted to get across the idea of people like wild animals, which doesn't come across quite as clearly as i wanted, but i only had 5 minutes, so i can forgive myself that. What do you think?

“Only great minds can afford a simple style.”

So i was on the sartorialist today because i'm sartorially uninspired, and i found this man, who i am now entirely in love with. I shall call him Theo.


Everything about his look works, the matching coat and all stars, the little stripey cardigan, and his adorable little wonky grin. I'm in love. Why don't boys at Sussex dress like this?

Then i saw this photo. I want to be this girl, she looks so cool, but like she's having so much fun. On an odd side note, her name is Clea, the name of the character i played in Black Comedy, which we performed to record breaking audiences this week. Go us! Maybe it's a sign of some sort, telling me to dress better or go to paris or something?


Now i have to go try and find some clothes to wear, and i know i won't look as cool as these guys, so it's hard to find the energy to bother!

The dog was created specially for children. He is a god of frolic. - Henry Ward Beecher

Dad just sent me this poem, and i think it's pretty nice, so i thought i'd share it.

The Power of the Dog

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie--
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.
When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find--it's your own affair--
But...you've given your heart for a dog to tear.
When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!);
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone--wherever it goes--for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart for the dog to tear.
We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve:
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long--
So why in Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

Yeah, Wilf was a god of frolic, no doubt.
Woof.

If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?

Our difficulties of the moment must always be dealt with somehow, but our permanent difficulties are difficulties of every moment.
T. S. Eliot

So my friend killed himself this weekend, and the day after i found that out, my dog died. It's been a pretty shit week, but i'm getting through with Gatsby, Buffy, lots of green tea and hugs. Last week i watched this amazing film called Wristcutters: a love story, about where people go when they kill themselves. It's a really lovely film, and thinking about it is oddly comforting, because the characters become happier after their deaths, without any of that sitting on a cloud playing a harp type crap.
Anyway, i thought you might want to see the trailer. It's a hard to find film, never got a UK release, but it's amazing and has an awesome soundtrack and has Tom Waits and Will Arnett and Shannyn Sossamon in it. Enjoy.



This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.
T. S. Eliot

And just to make you guys smile, here's my favourite photo of wilf.



I hope you're all having a better week than i am.

"God, am I like the rest after all?"

Every year, the thing that i look forward to most about Valentine's Day is the postsecret submissions for that week. There's always at least one that makes me cry, or smile, or both. Here are some of my favourites from this week.



I just found this F. Scott Fitzgerald quote, “I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self respect. And it's these things I'd believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all she should be. I love her and it is the beginning of everything.”
The man could write love. Don't you wish that was written about you?



There's Part of me that really loves this one, and i know it's the geek part. If you can't tell, it's Oz and Willow from Buffy, and the lines are from the scene where he first asks her out. It's one of the sweetest scenes in the whole 7 series of the show, and it just made me smile.


I'm watching that episode tonight.

"I quite admit that i adored you madly..."

Happy Valentine's Day, kiddywinks. I hope you're having a good one. I've spent the past four and a half hours of mine in the library, failing to write a very boring essay, but i'm not letting it get me down. I'm kind of embarrassed by how much i enjoy spending time in the library, especially when i'm not working on something i should be. It's just such a lovely, quiet, book-y place.
I'm also in a good mood because i have a valentine's day date for the first time in my life. Woop!
If you're not in the hallmark holiday spirit, have a look-see at these lovely A Softer World comics, they might make you smile. Remember to click to see them bigger.




And just to be a little more generic, here's my favourite sonnet. Say what you want about him, but that Shakespeare could write!

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

“Looking good and dressing well is a necessity. Having a purpose in life is not.”

So i was lurking on men.style.com again, as i am wont to do when i have essays due and seminars to go to and costumes to make and showers to have and really just feel like bathing in the glories of menswear design. It fascinates me, i don't know what it is. Anyway, there was a feature about new American menswear designers, and i felt that some of the images just had to be shared, for the stylistic good of the nation.

Taking style tips from these photos will make you better people. That's a fact.

This is a collection by Robert Geller. I love the suit on the left, and the fact that the designer's trousers are undone, but he still looks really cool and put together.



This is Andre Benjamin's label, Benjamin Bixby. Apparently he's influenced by comic book characters with nipped in waists and wide legs. I love the baker boy hat, very 1920s.



By far my favourite collection, Shipley and Halmos. I get that it's quite hipster, which is the look I'm most attracted to, but i mean really, it's just adorable, the perfect cut of the jeans, the checked shirts, and especially the little details like the fact that the model in the middle isn't wearing socks. I could write an ode to the pink bow tie alone. Sartorial Perfection.



Now go forth and re-create these looks. You will be happier, more fulfilled and cooler if you do. Trust me, I'm an English student.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I watched it last night and loved it. I hate that reviews have to be so short, there's so much more i wanted to say. There's a chance that this won't even get in to the Badger because it's too long, but oh well, i thought i'd share it here anyway.

By now, everyone knows the basic story; a boy is born old and grows younger, falls in love and has adventures, before ending up as a baby, cared for by his geriatric wife. People had their reservations, could Brad Pitt convince audiences that he was every age between ninety and nineteen? Could David Fincher pull off a beautiful, epic romance? Could Eric Roth, writer of Forest Gump, write a film that didn’t induce at least part of the audience to nausea? The answer, for the most part, is yes.
Because of his obvious attractiveness, Pitt is often sidelined as an actor. People overlook his talent and focus on his looks; in this film, with his beauty hidden under make-up and subtle but very effective CGI effects, his skill as an actor shines through. It can be no easy task for a 43 year old to play a 7 year old in an 80 year old’s body, but somehow he manages it, and the audience’s disbelief is suspended. You almost forget you’re watching one of the biggest stars in the world because you care so deeply for the character. When Benjamin reaches his teens, and the actor switches from Pitt to a child, going through stages of dementia as he dies of old age, you feel the switch as Cate Blanchett’s character Daisy must, that the recognition of the person you loved has gone, replaced by something almost unrecognisable.
David Fincher is without doubt an amazing director, but his previous films, Se7en, Fight Club, Panic Room, even Zodiac, have been more for the male side of the market. Critics have marked this film as a sign of him selling out, giving up his angry young man status in favour of glossy Hollywood adaptations, and certainly the ingredients are there. With two of the world’s biggest stars, a love story taking place over almost a century, and a little bit of magic, this was never going to be gritty filmmaking. But Fincher knows what he’s doing. He knows how to get a stellar performance out of Pitt, as witnessed in Se7en and Fight Club, and here is no exception. His trademark use of colour palette, grey for Panic Room, dirty yellow for Fight Club, is here a soft, very subtle sepia, which adds depth to the beautiful cinematography. The screenplay, which could easily have lapsed into saccharine schmaltz, instead relies on silences and well placed moments of humour to keep our interest.
There are downfalls, too much time is spent on the framing device, Cate Blanchett dying of old age, having Benjamin’s diary read to her by her daughter as an entirely unnecessary hurricane approaches, and the very last minute serves up a typical and undesired Hollywood happy ending, but apart from that it’s a beautiful film, well acted, well directed, and well worth watching.