It's not just for gays any more.

I want nothing more than to go to the Tony awards one day.

Bite me.

I have been on campus since 9 this morning. I just took what was supposed to be a short break, but what quickly turned into a 3 hour chat over drinks, with my friend Sarah. It made me very happy indeed.

I was telling her about how I watched Interview with the Vampire last night and couldn't take it seriously because of the joke in Bowfinger about how Tom Cruise didn't know he was in it. Well, i was trying to tell her, but i couldn't quite get the words out because i was crying with laughter. No joke in the history of cinema has ever made me laugh as much as that one, and every time i think about it, or watch that film, or see Tom Cruise being interviewed, it just gets funnier.

In other news, I finally decided on a title for my film essay. It's called "It's only OK to like sex if you're evil: Transgressive Feminine Sexualities in  Vampire Cinema" and it is so much fun. I love doing a silly degree!

Cut through all the cryptic crap

I have just spent entirely too much time on this website: http://betterbooktitles.com/
I read about it in the Guardian. Basically a comedian and writer has taken some of the worlds greatest pieces of literature and re-named them so that people can find them more easily in bookshops. Here are a couple of my favourite examples. Can you guess the real titles?

It may not be big or particularly clever, but they do make me laugh.
(Redesign and titles by Dan Wilbur)

The tiger dreams only of death

Oh Werner, you know how it goes.



So, uh, yeah...
There is a whole series of these and they crack me up.

Science is fun

Thank you msnbc for brightening up my evening. I like it when geeks get rude.

The phallic mushroom


 Herpetologist Robert Drewes at the California Academy of Sciences is reportedly thrilled to have a 2-inch-long, penis-shaped mushroom from the African island nation of Sao Tome and Principe named in his honor, Phallus drewesii.

"He wasn't offended by it," says Jameson. "I mean, wouldn't it be cool to have a new species named after you?"

Drewes initiated extensive biodiversity studies on Sao Tome and Principe and dedicated more than 30 years of his life to research in Africa. The shroom's discoverers said they named Phallus drewesii after Drewes because of that dedication.

.

How can you not smile?

You are so beautiful to me.

Learn it by heart and repeat it daily.



That is how I feel about all of you.

Smile.

Helpful hints.

I just re-found this video, which my beautiful and talented friend Angelina sent me at the beginning of the summer. I hope you find it as helpful and informative as I did.

How to Make a Situation About You: When Your Friend Needs To Talk	UCBcomedy.com
Watch more comedy videos from the twisted minds of the UCB Theatre at UCBcomedy.com

There's a whole series of them, in case you need more advice. Here's the link if you're curious.
http://www.ucbcomedy.com/videos/play/6260/how-to-make-a-situation-about-you

I hope you all have wonderful days.

In the mean time...

Hello lovers
Ok, so I'm back in Brighton for the rest of the year, so i can catch up with my sorely neglected blog. I have many things i want to say, but they're gonna require a little bit of time and effort to get up here, so for now i just want to say I've had an amazing summer with my wonderful mother whom i love, and i hope that when she gets off the plane she watches these videos and they make her laugh.



That one was random, this one has a purpose. We stayed up until 3AM on more than one occasion because of these gentlemen. I blame my eye bags on them.



You can't tell me that I'm not giving you hot pants.

Journalism at its best.

A little something to brighten your day.

Cute boys doing magic

A post that does exactly what it says on the tin. I didn't have anything i particularly wanted to say, but these things make me happy, so i thought i'd share. Enjoy.
First we have a little Matthew Gray Gubler to warm us up:

Then we have some Andrew Garfield being adorable, and slightly more impressive:

And, we finish with a joke, again from Goob, because i can't seem to get enough of him. This makes me giggle like and idiot every time i watch it. I have watched it MANY times.

I'm so in love.

We also create false promises

A couple of amusing Beatles related things for you today.

First off, this rather amazing flow chart, a simple way for any geek to learn the lyrics to one of the classics.

And secondly, an entirely spectacular and completely surreal Bollywood Beatles homage.

His entrance makes me very happy. All that head twitching. (sorry if the right hand side of the video is cut off on your screen, i don't know how to make it small enough to fit, blogger is being awkward.) Gotta learn that dance.

This is what my life is now

I'd be lying if i said i didn't enjoy it, but right now this is just ridiculous.
(click on the image to enlarge it)

I promise i'll never be your friend

This made me laugh a lot. I'm not sure if you have to be a Wes Anderson fan to really get it or if it's funny off its own back. I'm a massive Wes fan and it had me in stitches. Anyway, something to brighten up your Saturday in case it was as rainy and miserable as mine:



I've been doing some drawings today. I'll put up any I'm happy with as soon as I'm done, probably later tonight.
See you then.

Cheat neutral

Around this time last year i saw this film at a press screening for a documentary film festival, and for some reason it popped back into my head so i thought i'd share it. I think it is kind of brilliant.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p004tm7g

Sorry i can't embed the video, its owned by the bbc so you have to follow the link to watch it.
That's all for now.

This man has won oscars

I had a very long day today. It was good, i love directing, so any day where i get to do 6 hours of it is a pretty good one, but 12 hours on campus after 3 hours of sleep is enough to put anyone in a tired mood.

So, in case your day was as long as mine, or your spirits need some brightening, here are 2 fabulous photos of one of the sexiest men who has ever lived.

Aren't we all glad he grew out of that phase and into something slightly more respectable?

Have a beautiful day tomorrow, I have 2 hours of class and 8 hours of rehearsal, and i'm looking forward to it all. Who knows, if i keep this up maybe i'll meet George one day...

One of life's great questions finally answered

What if George Lucas remastered Singin' in the Rain? We've all wondered, and now the wait is over. Here's what it would look like.



I make very strange noises when i watch this, i wish you all could hear.

Something to make you smile

I have found a fabulous men's style blog. I have found many in my time, but this one stands out as different. All it is is photos of wonderful men and then links to places where you can buy similar things to what they are wearing.

The thing that sets it apart from other style blogs out these is that the clothes aren't ludicrously expensive or on trend, or even particularly nice on their own, but they are worn with such style, and such a sense of humour, that the wearer looks awesome.

While the clothes might not be to everyone's tastes, the photos are definitely enough to raise a smile. Mostly taken from the pre-1970s, they are of men that people love. The photos have charm and charisma, and make you think that if you had the clothes you might be having as much fun as the people in them were, which is exactly the point of the blog.

Oh, and did i mention, it's called "nerd boyfriend". How could i not love it?!

Here are some of my favourite shots of some of my favourite men. Enjoy.

I Wish i knew Dali and Man Ray, they were so hardcore.

Belmondo might be the single sexiest man who ever lived, even though he had a lumpy face and squinty eyes. Its all in the confidence (and the Frenchness)

This one of Steve Martin is now my desktop background. It reminds me of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, though i have no idea when it was actually taken. He just looks so cool, and then you see what he's doing.So basically, everyone wants a nerd boyfriend, preferably from the 1970s, preferably a comedian, definitely one with style.

My brother can write things too.

Hitler Moustache is Richard Herrings 25th Edinburgh show on the trot, and there is a reason he is a fringe favourite. His current mission is to reclaim the toothbrush moustache for comedy , “taking it away from Hitler and giving it back to Charlie Chaplin, two contemporaries whose careers, it's fair to say, dropped off after the Second World War."

To this end he has taken it upon himself to grow the offensive ‘tasche and has been parading it about for many months risking possible violence from the general public for appearing to be a Nazi crackpot, but generally just appearing to be “a bit of a dick”. The show opens with his musings about why the moustache and seems to have taken the blame for Nazism, the effect his new moustache would have upon those he met, and more importantly what affects it might have on himself; “was it the toothbrush moustache that was evil? Would I become evil if I grew one” The program is full of his thoughts on the subject, but the show rapidly moves onto more substantial material.

Herrings satirical point, that a racist is less racist than the rest of us, because a racist sees the world as only a handful of different skin tones, where as the rest of us feel the need to divide the world into 195 different nationalities, is possibly his finest work. "If only the people of India and Pakistan could see themselves the way a racist sees them – 'What are we doing? Why are we fighting? I'm a Paki, you're a Paki.'" He is able to construct this argument so well into his candour that any inappropriateness is forgiven.

As Herring himself wrote to the Guardian, defending his show from reviewer Brian Logan “The show examines our attitudes to ethnicity and questions whether the way humans choose to divide themselves is obfuscating their essential similarity. It challenges racism, but also liberal assumptions about cultural identity”.

A trait that is common in Herring’s stand-up, is the clear feeling that they don’t have to pander to an audience. Just over half way into the show Herring embarks on a good 10-15 minute, largely jokeless, tirade against any member of the audience who did not vote in the last European election, thereby allowing the BNP to gain 2 seats in the European Parliament.

Using this to point out that fascism is not dead and gone, but “it is, and always has been, inherently ridiculous, and it can be damaged and even destroyed by laughter”. If every photo opportunity Nick Griffin has for the BNP had a backdrop of people wearing a toothbrush moustache (Herring helpfully hands out square inches of Velcro after the show from a bucket marked with a swastika, the Hindu symbol of peace) they will never be taken seriously again.

At points the performance does start to lag, but all in all the show is often hilarious, constantly thought provoking, and a highly complex take on the attitudes of the society surrounding us, with a bit of silliness thrown in for good measure.

"men so skinny that i like to think this date could be their last"

Simon Amstell and I have the same love life. During the course of his show I came to realize that he and I not only have the same taste in men, but the same pathetic way of not getting them. His comedy is personal, heartfelt and sincere, far removed from the acerbic barbs for which viewers of Never Mind the Buzzcocks know and love him. His routine started off with a lament to the amount of sinks in his bathroom and how they daily mock his loneliness, a point he circles back to on a couple of occasions, heightening the idea that what he is telling us is not a one off, bad dating story, but instead a pattern which dictates his romantic happiness, or lack thereof. There are several moments where the audience aww him instead of laughing, a new experience for me at a comedy show, but a very pleasant one. Throughout Amstell’s show, through his nervous stance and slightly hesitant delivery, the audience is entirely on his side. He is a comedian it is almost impossible to dislike, a comedian our generation has grown up with on Pop world and Buzzcocks. We feel we know him, so to see him in such a different and revealing setting is both refreshing and strangely unsettling. I’m sure I’m not the only one in the audience who wanted to run on stage and give him a hug.

His show leads the audience through his romantic failings on a charming journey of self discovery through repeated mistakes. Amstell talks us through ideal men, falling in love with fantasies, and how not to chat up movie stars (upon meeting Jared Leto, his perfect man, at a full moon party in Thailand, he apparently uttered the immortal words “Your beauty in Requiem for a Dream detracted from the narrative.” Mr Leto walked away.).

An idea which lingers throughout is that life is short and that everybody dies, perhaps not the richest vein of comedy gold, but a surprisingly uplifting one. Amstell convincingly argues that in order to be happy, and get your requisite amount of “rumbly-tumbly” you have to live in the moment. Perhaps it’s time for he and I to take control our identical love lives. The worst that can happen is we create some new material for a stand up show. If I get rejected, I’m blaming you Mr. Amstell.

Moses supposes.....

I'm not sure if i've mentioned this before, but in a film lecture at the beginning of the year the lecture asked us to think about what scene we would choose if we were to be locked in a jail cell for the rest of our lives. This scene would be projected on the wall all day, every day. I have spent a disproportionate amount of time thinking about this, and I think this is my ultimate choice.



I love the little looks they give each other. Gene Kelly's eyes are so expressive. He's the first person i ever had a crush on, and i still love him just as much. He's just so lovely.