As I've said before, we finally moved flats. What that has to do with the topic title? Well, read on.
From our old flat, at the end of every August, Notting Hill Carnival could be heard as a distant din and the occasional 'loud' float would cruise by back to their base.
Now, in this new flat, we are literally on the route of the Carnival. I can throw eggs at the police from my front door or make a small fortune selling Red Stripe from a bin.
When I was younger, say 18... The prospect of Notting Hill Carnival would have filled me with joy and anticipation. I would have been out all day eating jerked chicken and getting pissed and probably stoned.
But, now... 10 years on... I am actually dreading the coming of the Carnival. The constant "BLOW YOUR WHISTLE" and other Carnival favourites for 14+ hours a day. The millions(?) of people trooping by my house, the dirty fucks who'll decide that my front garden will make a good toilet, the weeks it'll take the council to clean up the filth left behind, etc.
Now, what has happened to me in 10 years that has made quite a fundalmental change in my attitude of 'fun'? The only thing I can think of is just that, 10 years. Is 10 years such a long time that one loses his/her ability to have fun? Is it normal for someone who's only 28 to feel like he should be wearing slippers in front of a fireplace smoking a pipe?
Have you noticed such changes? Do you dread things that once would have made you happy? How can you combat these changes? Do you have a place for me to crash for 2 days at the end of August?
Posted by herbs (Member # 101) on :
It does beg the question of why you've moved to Notting Hill
As for being an old git, I was just thinking about this the other day. I was drafted in to a pub quiz team, where everyone else was about 10 years younger than me. And they all knew NOTHING. And kept mucking about and not taking it seriously. Making me feel like a total boring old GRAN.
I often also think 'what does she think she looks like'; 'he'll ruin his ears listening to music that loud on headphones'; and 'is that what they call music these days?'.
Pass my zip-up slippers.
Posted by dang65 (Member # 102) on :
I suspect a lot of this getting old thing is just to do with having seen it all before. Your first big piss-up party, first mosh pit gig, first festival, first toke on a joint etc etc always seem so cool and exciting and new. That lasts for a while too as you go to further extremes of drinking or drugging, or the big piss-up parties are in some distant foreign city instead of just down the road from your house. Then it all just becomes dull with repetition and other things take their place.
New things still excite me though. [*struggles to think of an example*]
Posted by froopyscot (Member # 178) on :
I'm not sure it's age necessarily - I don't think I would have enjoyed having thousands of people trapsing by my front door even when I was 18 or 20; at the same token, I'm 33 now but would probably still enjoy going to the festival. Just so long as I have the option of going home afterward.
Posted by Tom Boy (Member # 765) on :
My manager lives in Notting Hill, He's going away for carnival weekend. Think I'll take the oppertunity to burn his house to the ground and smash fuck out of his car for being such a smug cun*. Er is this thread in rants?
Posted by Abby (Member # 582) on :
I dunno...I went to the Carnival once for about 10 minutes when I was, hmm...must have been about 21. It was a fucking nightmare, so I left, nothing old about that. BUT if you were prepared to let the great unwashed into your house you could pay the mortgage by chargeing a quid a go to go to the toilet.
I have noiced recently that I am being a lot more sensible with my social life, and it isn't so much that I don't want to stay up until 9am every saturday and sunday, it is more that I want to have actuall days in my weekend rather then just nights.
Posted by 69 Comeback Elvis (Member # 9) on :
If you don't like big bird, why the fuck would you move onto Sesame Street?
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
quote:Originally posted by herbs: As for being an old git, I was just thinking about this the other day. I was drafted in to a pub quiz team, where everyone else was about 10 years younger than me. And they all knew NOTHING. And kept mucking about and not taking it seriously. Making me feel like a total boring old GRAN.
I don't think this is an age issue. I've always taken pub quizzes incredibly seriously. I hate it when the girlfriend of your mate's housemate's brother has to join your team and is thick as fucking pigshit, but has the temerity to argue with you and insist that it was Thailand that used to be called Ceylon. GOD.
Posted by discodamage (Member # 66) on :
do you know what is worse? getting competitive in work training quizzes. like, when someone asks you 'what does the asymmetric in adsl mean?' and youre all like, oh!!!!!!!! i know that, it means the information goes both ways, and the other team is like, yeah, but what information? no points for that answer! and then you sit there all huffy going, well, the digital information, obviously, i completely know what adsl means, just give me the point already stop being so frickin backasswards. then you ask them a question about the fire alarms and they all sputter into their sleeves and go MWAHA yeah whatever try harder you losers, do you even want to win this quiz, are you even ever going to step the fuck up to the plate and ask us somethign we might have to THINK ABOUT, are you gonna bite little doggie or are you yada yada. and you cannot look at anyone or at anything other than your left kneecap because you are two points behind and that nigerian chick is getting all 4 non- blondes and we-know-all-the-answers and you are sweating into your rainy clothes so you smell of steamy sweaty cheescloth and adrenalin and by god, YOU WANT TO WIN THE QUIZ. but then they make the mistake of asking where belize is and you are saved! 'central america next to guatemala, i have been there, youre so clever, but i have been to belize, you are not so very clever now, in fact i bet you feel pretty stupid, suck my aaaaaasss, neh neh neh' and also a question about wi- fi. you win and go for a fag and feel utterly ashamed of yourself for getting so steamed. and also for not knowing that the capital of nigeria is no longer lagos DAMMNIT.
Posted by MiscellaneousFiles (Member # 60) on :
quote:Originally posted by discodamage: do you know what is worse? getting competitive in work training quizzes. like, when someone asks you 'what does the asymmetric in adsl mean?' and youre all like, oh!!!!!!!! i know that, it means the information goes both ways, and the other team is like, yeah, but what information? no points for that answer! and then you sit there all huffy going, well, the digital information, obviously, i completely know what adsl means, just give me the point already stop being so frickin backasswards...
Surely the word asymmetric signifies not that the information goes both ways (as it surely does in normal DSL), but rather that the upstream and downstream connections run at different speeds (e.g. 512/256)?
No points for that answer...
Posted by discodamage (Member # 66) on :
quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: Surely the word asymmetric signifies not that the information goes both ways (as it surely does in normal DSL), but rather that the upstream and downstream connections run at different speeds (e.g. 512/256)?
hey guess what smartarse! heres the funny thing. i dont actually need to know what adsl means or even stands for. noone is ever going to ask me in the course of my working day what the difference between dsl and adsl is, its enough to know that one is dial- up and one broadband; anything more complex is What Tech Is For. and besides im not being paid enough to pretend to know this shit. it is better to admit you know nothing than to pretend you know a little bit.
Posted by discodamage (Member # 66) on :
thats my real answer. watch and learn as worzel- gummidge like, i pu on my customer service face:
is that right, mr files? sorry, can i call you miscellaneous? oh, do you know, now i look at my information i see youre correct about that. i apologise for any confusion i may have caused you. now is this the first time you have rung us about this issue? can i take your adsl phone number? thankyou. and your security question? thats great, thankyou. now how i can i help you today? Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
Don't know if everyone received this memo, but if you're watching University Challenge: Teh Professionals and you answer correctly a question that neither of the teams can, that's double points for you.
You're also permitted to barrack gracelessly the hapless 'professionals' and call them fucking-thick-as-Anthony-thick-as-pigshit-Hutton-thick-FUCKS until Pac-Man puts them out of their misery.
Personally, I think a team of TMO people could enter as 'The Internet Timewasters' or somesuch and walk the entire tournament.
Posted by London (Member # 29) on :
Quizmeat! No, wait: we don't do meats no more, do we.
Posted by MiscellaneousFiles (Member # 60) on :
quote:Originally posted by London: Quizmeat! No, wait: we don't do meats no more, do we.
Wasn't there a LeedsMeat fairly recently?
Posted by London (Member # 29) on :
Royal we, dude.
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
quote:Originally posted by ben: Personally, I think a team of TMO people could enter as 'The Internet Timewasters' or somesuch and walk the entire tournament.
Oh man, that would be soooo sweet.
I haven't really watched much of The Profeshnials series- are the questions notably less academic than on the normal shows?
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
Hard to say - I seem to be able to answer more than I remember being able to on 'classic' UC...
Maybe I just got cleverer. Or the programme got stupidder.
Posted by discodamage (Member # 66) on :
i can answer questions on mastermind now, and i definitely havent got cleverer.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
I can get the pop music ones, but I don't watch it much these days. It reminds me of wronging herbs. That's not a euphamism for anal sex.
I got this sensation of anti- fun last night. I was watching V festival on the TV, and Joss 'The Voice' Stone was prancing about to a backing band of undead session musicians, follwed by a sing-a-long to the Tony Christie one, and I couldn't think of one reason how anybody could go there for fun. It looked like it would be three days of standing in a sea of *****, watching ***** sing about other *****, and all the while drowning in self hatred for being unable to think about anything but how much everybody was a **** . And half the time, you're just watching the ***** on a big fucking tv screen. WTF?
But, say, ten years ago, I would have thought that such an event would be mmmmmmmmmmint.
[ 22.08.2005, 13:37: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
That's nothing, Benway - last night I inaugurated my Whole Month Of Not Watching Any TV At All by hunkering down to two whole hours of The World's Greatest Supermodel on Channel 5.
It was pretty satisfactory on the whole, except for 'Gisele' garnering the number two position. Also, presumably because they cooperated with the programme, Schiffer's association with David Copperfield was never mentioned and neither was Crawford's with erstwhile 'very-married' chum Richard Gere.
Posted by London (Member # 29) on :
I watched the top ten of that. It was rather enjoyable. Seeing the 'big five' (whatever happened to Tatyana Patitz, [sp] btw - she was on that classic Vogue cover along with Christy, Linda, Naomi and Cindy, y'know, but nobody ever hears anything of her anymore) was a real reminder of my late 80s / early 90s immersion in the world of the glossy magazine.
I bought Elle, Marie Claire and Vogue religiously every month, and my friend Jess and I would gaze at the pictures for hours, our fingers tracing the curve of Linda's cheekbones or the arc of Christy's right eyebrow. You'd enter a world where £300 for a bangle didn't seem like a stupid amount of money but like a righteous signifier of belonging. I remember saving up and spending £15 on a Chanel 'Coco' deoderant spray - I couldn't afford the eau de toilette, but it came in an identical bottle and, sitting there on my dressing-table, seemed to work as a synecdoche for all the frocks and accessories and poise and killer cheekbones that I was sure would one day be mine.
But gazing at the beautiful faces of the supermodels was a pleasure that could not go untaxed - like ecstasy or infidelity, it's bound to bite you in the ass at some point. For me, that point would come in the inevitable comparison as, post-Vogue, I studied my own chubby, uneven features in the mirror. I wanted to take the models' beauty as a gift freely given and something entirely separate from my own, as I might marvel at a basket of kittens and not go 'Awww, AMPy not so cute as kittens! :-('. But I couldn't do that: I felt that the preternatural beauty of Christy et al was something I could achieve if I just tried harder. Shyeah right. All the Cindy Crawford Workout videos in the world could not shift bone or heighten facial symmetry. (They oughtta put that on the box).
Last night, moved by age and time into a world far away from self-comparison, I was finally able to observe the supermodels and just enjoy it, losing myself in aesthetic pleasure the way I imagine a man might, without the inevitable kick of self-loathing and recriminations - and it was good. I guess that's a sign of aging (topic relevance ahoy!). I'm no longer in their competition. I'm no longer a young girl / woman to be judged by every passerby and onlooker and found wanting. It means you lose certain priviliges - people aren't needlessly nice to you all the time, bus-drivers pull away from the stop instead of waiting as you run and calling you 'love' as you pay - but you also gain freedoms, such as the freedom not to stand in front of the mirror, tears streaming down your face, tempted to self-harm as you once again chastise yourself for not looking like Christy fucking Turlington.
[ 23.08.2005, 03:14: Message edited by: London ]
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
My mother used to - actually, still does - buy VOGUE each month and, as furtive pleasures went, it was pretty much as addictive as crack-coated Hob-Nobs for a misunderstood aesthete marooned in late-80s Yokelshire. What an artefact it was: as thick as a copy of Catch-22 with creamy-satiny pages and gummed folds of aroma from a different universe.
For a while I think I was probably in love with Tatjana Patitz, whose heart-fucking feline beauty must have graced at least every other issue. The spell was broken, of course, when she starred as murder victim #1 in rotten Michael Crichton Jap-fear 'thriller' Rising Sun.
I don't know... glamour was still glamorous back then; now we're treated to Closer montages of top models in scab-nostrilled, xylophone-ribbed distress - and the standard attitude is the lip-licking pant-hoot of the men's mags rather than that old-fashioned, intoxicating, unfakeable thing, awe. Posted by London (Member # 29) on :
quote:Originally posted by ben: I don't know... glamour was still glamorous back then; now we're treated to Closer montages of top models in scab-nostrilled, xylophone-ribbed distress - and the standard attitude is the lip-licking pant-hoot of the men's mags rather than that old-fashioned, intoxicating, unfakeable thing, awe.
Do you think we become less susceptible to glamour as we age? In my post I'm a teenage girl, still dreaming of what I might be; Ben's a boy on a farmhouse in rural Yorkshire - there's potential for escape in both these situations, a dream of a future into which glamour might fit. Glamour's about an illusion (everyone knows the word's etymological roots in these post-Craft days, right?); being a grown-up (yawn) is about accepting reality; reality trumps illusion. Maybe today's teenagers still experience the world of top models as glamorous, enchanting and awe-inspiring, even when that invoves Kate and Pete slumping round Glastonbury on crack? Hm.
Posted by dang65 (Member # 102) on :
I watched the programme about taxidermists on the other side. This revealed an industry in which a number of neurotic drama queens spend their lives covering plastic mannequins in fur, preening them until they are more perfect than anything you'd see in real life and then putting them on show for all to gasp at. We did get to see them shooting the models first though, which was the clincher for me.
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: But, say, ten years ago, I would have thought that such an event would be mmmmmmmmmmint.
Ten years ago you would have been, what... 14? 15? 16? And your idea of a 'mint' event would be watching a Joss Stone set? Surely it's a greater sign of the onset of bland mediocre middle age to start thinking that Glastonbury/ V Festival/ Reading/ Leeds are a good time.
Posted by vikram (Member # 98) on :
quote:Originally posted by London: Do you think we become less susceptible to glamour as we age? In my post I'm a teenage girl, still dreaming of what I might be; Ben's a boy on a farmhouse in rural Yorkshire - there's potential for escape in both these situations, a dream of a future into which glamour might fit. Glamour's about an illusion (everyone knows the word's etymological roots in these post-Craft days, right?); being a grown-up (yawn) is about accepting reality; reality trumps illusion. Maybe today's teenagers still experience the world of top models as glamorous, enchanting and awe-inspiring, even when that invoves Kate and Pete slumping round Glastonbury on crack? Hm.
I think that as you experience more and your values change, as you grow up, your attitudes towards the traditonal spheres of cool - fashion, music, hollywood - become more realistic I guess. Oh I don't know - just that when I was a 16 year old stuck in the Fens I dreamt of drinking in - lol - The Good Mixer and fucking groupie-models, and a year later I was doing just that. I think maybe I am just jaded by it all. When I flick thru i-D or whatever, I don't ever think I want to be part of that scene. I still have the odd tinge of want with Conde Nast Traveller, but that's under control. I'm not after my own lil Studio 54 anymore. Does this make any sense?
Ach, I'm talking shit, as always. I just think, for me anyway, all that peripherial blah, it just doesn't mean anything. It's about the simple things now. This is probably all the fault of Heat, god bless it.
Actually, no, I still want the Saville suits and fad restaurants and hols somewhere liberal and chic and the Tatler wife. The future can only be unhappy.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
I would have been sixteen, and anything that involved the whole sleeping in a tent and drinking 'till I puked would have been my idea of heaven. I went to the Essential a couple of times, and enjoyed it, even though for most of it I was in some kind of pain or discomfort.
Posted by London (Member # 29) on :
quote:Originally posted by vikram: Actually, no, I still want the Saville suits and fad restaurants and hols somewhere liberal and chic and the Tatler wife. The future can only be unhappy.
That's true: it just moves, doesn't it? And the desire isn't as strong. But I read Elle Deco and hanker for those spaces: I go to the farmer's market and see little girls in stripy tights and cute mums and hot dad looking at apples and I think I want I want. You just fantasise another future slightly out of reach. And when you get it
[insert cliche here]
/end trite shite
[ 23.08.2005, 06:03: Message edited by: London ]
Posted by Abby (Member # 582) on :
On my (2 hours delayed) train back from Devon on Sunday someone had abandoned a copy of Marie Claire, which I flicked through for a bit. I have never been really into magazines, a combination of avoiding the inevitable comparisons that London spoke of and not being able to stop going Five hundred pounds! For face cream! I bet it doesn’t even do anything… But anyway, this one was no different and I fairly quickly abandoned it, declaring it to be absolute tosh to the girl opposite me (by this time the train was so late that the passengers were speaking to each other). As it turns out she does PR for Gap, and showed me the Gap add in the magazine that she had organised. Ooops. Then I noticed that her own copy of erm, some other magazine, had those little sticky tabs in where she had marked pages. That is taking your magazine reading seriously. She also told me that a one page add in Marie Claire costs £250,000. Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds to put a picture of a weird handbag in a magazine! Mad. Then I calculated that the same amount of money would cover the running costs (ie chemicals, equipment, repairs etc) for about 10 years. Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
quote:Originally posted by ben: That's nothing, Benway - last night I inaugurated my Whole Month Of Not Watching Any TV At All by hunkering down to two whole hours of The World's Greatest Supermodel on Channel 5.
aye, I watched that, but I missed the final three because of a phone call. That Gia one seemed interesting. Her life would make a good BBC1 tv movie.
Posted by vikram (Member # 98) on :
The other day I was flicking thru a gossip weekly. Not Heat. And they had a retrospective of Kate Moss. God damn, she looked great. So versatile! And first off, I thought how wrong I was when I told Ben that Kate was spent. Then there was this weird feeling - it wasn't quite lust. I wanted to be in her group, all feted, but without the crack baby. I wanted to be someone, someone effortlessly fashion, admired and adored, and above all talked about. So yeah, still want glamour. Or a kid. I'd be a wicked Dad. I could buy one of those Bugaboos.
Posted by discodamage (Member # 66) on :
quote:Originally posted by dang65: I watched the programme about taxidermists on the other side. This revealed an industry in which a number of neurotic drama queens spend their lives covering plastic mannequins in fur, preening them until they are more perfect than anything you'd see in real life and then putting them on show for all to gasp at.
that programme was the best thing i have seen in a stuffed raccoons age. my favourite bit was matthias staring at the inert winnow in the fish tank, willing it back to life again. and then as the truth dawned that jesus was not going to reanimate the fish that he had just pulled into shore on his own rod, saying balefully
'more and more...i begin to suppose he is dead'
also a nine year old child squealing 'cool!' as a deer's guts fell steaming out of its belly onto the mulch. funny, intimate, shocking- i heart the bbc.
Posted by dang65 (Member # 102) on :
Did you spot the exhibit at the show which had a boar's head and shoulders at the front and, inside the boar's neck, a little cosy nest with a baby piglet peeking out? Class!
And another one was a little kennel with a stuffed tiny baby puppy 'asleep' in front of it.
I'm wondering how long before someone brings along a stuffed human, perhaps one breastfeeding a stuffed baby. I can picture it winning the Grand Prize and a standing ovation before the police break the doors down and drag away the winner while everyone else stands around muttering, "What'd he do?"
Posted by New Way Of Decay (Member # 106) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: I was watching V festival on the TV, and Joss 'The Voice' Stone was prancing about to a backing band of undead session musicians,
Funny you should dub her 'the voice' because I was watching that on Sunday too. She was in comparison to her recorded vocals, dogshit. Not to sat that she couldn't sing or anything. She did well. She just sounded 'husky' or 'puffed out' and it made me think of James Brown dropping on his knees and sweating and still being able to sing amazingly. It just made me think of singers who give it everything and hone and hone their voices so that all that comes out is just musical gold. Joss Stone wasn't gold. She was a bit tin.
edit: I think what I'm trying to say is that she just is cut froma different cloth. She'd be more at home doing photoshoots and interviews than playing church fetes and community centres until she perfected her 'soul voice'
quote:Originally posted by Abby: Five hundred pounds! For face cream! I bet it doesn’t even do anything…
My friend introduced me to some cologen that he had. I rubbed a bit on my forhead for a test. It was shiny for the rest of the day, not a blemish on it. People kept asking 'what the fucks up with your forehead?' I semared some from a tiny vial (about a third of the size and shape of a stinkbomb) which cost at least ninety pounds each. he got them on the cheap from his auntie who is in the hair and beauty industry. It works I swear, but it can't stop you from looking 40 years younger, hence the need to go all nip/tuck when the time arrives.
[ 23.08.2005, 06:30: Message edited by: New Way Of Decay ]
Posted by vikram (Member # 98) on :
quote:Originally posted by London: That's true: it just moves, doesn't it? And the desire isn't as strong. But I read Elle Deco and hanker for those spaces: I go to the farmer's market and see little girls in stripy tights and cute mums and hot dad looking at apples and I think I want I want. You just fantasise another future slightly out of reach. And when you get it
[insert cliche here]
/end trite shite
Yeah, and it does become more obtainable. It's not as big a leap to one day live in some TriBeCa loft. Easier than becoming a cool famous person anyway.
So as you get older your aspirations become more 'normal'. Which is not the same as mediocre - let's face it, dreaming of performing on ToTP is pretty unimaginative.
You know Amp, before I fucked everything up again (sorry about that drunken email), I met this incredible woman, beautiful and lovely and fashion, who was everything I (used to) dream of. And she told me about her alcohol problems and going to NA and I think that in the past I would have thought 'cool', in that way we celebrate rock star suicide, but instead I was thinking isn't that sad? I hope you work it out and get married and have kids and stuff (preferably with me) and move to teh country.
And also, I thought: must drink more wheatgrass and 'liver flush' drinks. So yeah, health is my new aspiration. 27 next year! Why on earth did we ever find the misery of Kurt Cobain glamorous?
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: That Gia one seemed interesting. Her life would make a good BBC1 tv movie.
There's a movie about her Benway, starring Angelina. I think it is made-for-tv.
[ 23.08.2005, 06:45: Message edited by: vikram ]
Posted by vikram (Member # 98) on :
oh wait, did i miss a joke?
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
quote:Originally posted by vikram: Why on earth did we ever find the misery of Kurt Cobain glamorous?
I don't know about 'we', exactly. I think an awful lot of people were able to relate to Kurt Cobain's misery. I don't know if that's the same as finding it glamourous. I think a lot of people aspired to be like him because they recognised he had an ability to channel his despair into his music; to take his negative feelings and siphon them off into something passionate, and exciting and brilliant. I don't think that counts as finding his depression glamourous. I find myself thinking much the same way about Benway, but I wouldn't describe him as glamourous.
Anyway - Thinking on people's comments on J. Stone and the recent music festivals, I reckon you truly know you've beached yourself on the shores of impending middle age when you turn up to a rock gig and your first instinct isn't to hit the bar, or let rip in a singalong, or get crowd-surfing or start a moshpit, but simply to pull out your fucking mobile phone and take a blurry 1megapixel shot of the band so you can show it to the people at work and tell them you had "a really amazing time".
Posted by vikram (Member # 98) on :
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: I find myself thinking much the same way about Benway, but I wouldn't describe him as glamourous.
No, he is more anti-glamour, but not in a cool way. Still, his misery is an inspiration. He's so brave.
Posted by dang65 (Member # 102) on :
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: I reckon you truly know you've beached yourself on the shores of impending middle age when you turn up to a rock gig and [...] pull out your fucking mobile phone and take a blurry 1megapixel shot of the band...
B-but it's only kids I see doing that. The middle-aged amongst us just go *tut* and *snarl* as if we were still punks.
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
quote:Originally posted by dang65: *tut* and *snarl*
New tag for Dang?
I'm struggling to remember my aspirations as a sullen WestCun'ree teen. I've never bought a "womans magazine" ever, so was never seduced by pics of pouting clothes-hangers. I was always jealous of friends who had older sisters. Just being an older sister seemed really cool- they had the bigger bedroom, funkier clothes, more records and often a boyfriend with a motorbike. [spaz alert, of course I am technically an older sister, but brothers don't count. I wanted a younger sister to be jealous of me and my casually stylish demeanour]. As me and a mate might emerge, GN'R T-shirted, tassle-skirted and DM-booted for a night of cider and vomit at Corfe Mullen Rec, an Older Sister would stride past wearing something grown-up and glittery on her way to a "club" in her "mate's car", without bothering to speak to us children.
I like to think that the A-level girls on the train last Friday who spent 25 mins dabbing make up on their spots thought I was cool when I was on the phone going "I've got on the slow train by mistake! I'm going through random villages called Little Cocking and Lower Hole in the middle of nowhere! I'm going to miss the wedding!". Perhaps not.
Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
Whilst some of you were watching the 80s supermodel programme, I was watching America's Next Top Model the catch-up edition and thinking about how little things have changed.
In the 1970s (when I was a proper babe, ie. under 5) your pretty girl with ambitions could try and win Miss Wherever/Miss World and get to travel, pay for her education etc. These days she tries to win a model competition.
Then I flicked over to Channel 5 to see the "whatever happened to" programme that follows up the British version of the series and realised how much had changed.
The girl who won (lissome, lispy, curly-lipped and kooky) kept prancing about on shoots for Italian Vogue, nearly breaking her ankles but maintaining a humble demeanour throughout. Because nobody likes a show-off and nice girls don't .
But there was also some Fulham horror called Jasmine who was now a muse (tabloid tart) for a designer of red-carpet tat. Mother's a Bond girl. Lips by Unibond. Can say without a hint of irony that "you just need to get the right break and you can be Julia Roberts". Literally apparently.
That has changed in the last ten years, it's a subject that's been done to death, but it's still true that this desire for instant fame via reality TV is a recent phenomenon. It's not us that's changed in that respect, it's the landscape. I'm pretty sure I can think of 30-year-olds who are just as susceptible in that respect.
Abi Titmuss maybe? Maureen from Driving School (old skool reality TV - my mate went out with her daughter, does that make me connected?)
The main generational change I see is aspiration being replaced with opportunism. But perhaps away from the pages of Heat magazine ordinary 18, 19, 20 year olds are still willing to work hard for years on end to achieve their goals.
Posted by herbs (Member # 101) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: I can get the pop music ones, but I don't watch it much these days. It reminds me of wronging herbs. That's not a euphamism for anal sex.
Hey don't sweat it. I don't feel wronged. Or not enough that it should affect your enjoyment of University Callenge. I still have fond memories of Wallace. Was that his name?
Isn't old gits' disapproval of youngsters aspiring to instant fame partly sour grapes that we're past it, and won't ever have that opportunity again? Or maybe that's just me.
Oh, and Veep. Being an older sister wasn't that great. More insecurity and jealousy than glitter and insouciance.
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
quote:Originally posted by OJ: this desire for instant fame via reality TV
I saw a few seconds of something horrible by accident the other night. I think it must have been some C4 Big Brother retrospective. It showed one of the contestents (Linda? Lesley?) being limoed round her home town (Huddersfield) where she wowed the crowds at local nightclubs by being "the local girl off Big Brother" and standing on a small stage whilst gawping young lads took camera phone pictures. Sitting in the limo sipping champagne she explained that she used to do a boring admin job but much preferred this.
Posted by dang65 (Member # 102) on :
quote:Originally posted by OJ: The main generational change I see is aspiration being replaced with opportunism.
Probably the lowest of the low is fake Reality TV. Examples being that A Place In France one with Nigel something, who was the producer of the programme and was blatantly taking stupid risks and pissing everyone off solely to make "interesting" TV. I've heard that a lot of No Going Back (a great favourite of mine when it was first shown) was also set up, or at least made to look extreme and melodramatic when it was all going OK really with no more setbacks than anyone gets in normal life.
Another one is the one about the chef and his family who went to France and then came back and have set up in Cornwall. I've only seen a bit of that one, but it's so pathetically staged that any more would be unwatchable.
I'm assuming that all Reality TV is at least partially fixed these days, basically making every programme of its type into an episode of The Office, only more embarassing to watch in most cases.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: Sitting in the limo sipping champagne she explained that she used to do a boring admin job but much preferred this.
yeah, I saw that. It was excellent. Every smile will be returned in a thousand tears, and anybody in the world could see that apart from her. Sometimes I think that it's okay to feel spite towards people like that, and other times I think we should care for them, like a bird that's flown into a window. She'll be sucking cock for cash/coke in a couple of years, feeling like a superstar. It's tragic, but then the evil part of me thinks that it's her own fucking fault for being so unwilling to face reality. Maybe I'm just jealous, because I ain't got the biggest boobs in huddersfield.
[ 23.08.2005, 08:01: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: Sometimes I think that it's okay to feel spite towards people like that, and other times I think we should care for them, like a bird that's flown into a window. She'll be sucking cock for cash/coke in a couple of years, feeling like a superstar.
O/T but you know I'd probably be far more inclined to instinctively feel sympathy for Huddersfield-secretary (who I didn't see) to whiny-braying-Jasmine being filmed wiggling her nipple tassles on Sloane Street.
It's a class thing.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
I saw Jasmine, and she can fuck herself too, which in the future she might well be doing, on DVD for cash/coke, thinking that she's a superstar. Any one of these bitches (and that includes men) who see being famous as a career in itself have died inside.
[ 23.08.2005, 08:10: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
Posted by H1ppychick (Member # 529) on :
The most heartbreaking thing is the extent to which the delusions have been built for these somewhat-naive reality wannabes by sharks who just want to get their piece of the action. For example, the part where Lesley (for that is her name) went to audition for two music producers and as soon as she started singing there was this knowing horrified look that came onto their faces of "Christ she really can't sing, that is appallingly bad" yet when she spoke to them she somehow came away with the impression that it was her poor choice of song that let her down and not the lack of any discernible talent. Thus perpetuating her delusion.
Whilst sitting there thinking "get off my screen you talentless no-mark" and enjoying the schadenfreude, there's that wince of sympathy for someone being cruelly manipulated.
Posted by London (Member # 29) on :
quote:Originally posted by vikram:
You know Amp, before I fucked everything up again (sorry about that drunken email)
I loved that email. "I had no choice. I was wearing a thousand-dollar jacket." I'm going to print it out and frame it and hang it on my wall.
Benway, OJ: who's Jasmine?
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
some girl who wants to be like Paris Hilton, and was in a program where chicks competed to be models.
Posted by scrawny (Member # 113) on :
Amp - here Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
'she doesn't read books'. Posh said that too. Is it like some kind of badge of ignorance that people are proud of now?
Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
quote:"To be a model is to be a clothes peg with attitude, charm and charisma"
Jasmine
If she read books she might know the difference between a clothes horse and a clothes peg.
Or maybe she does want to be a clothes peg?
Posted by London (Member # 29) on :
Well, clothes do hang well off them, which they say is an important quality in a model.
Posted by scrawny (Member # 113) on :
If she read books she might know the difference between a clothes horse and a clothes peg.
Or maybe she does want to be a clothes peg?
Maybe you ought to read a few more books yourself. A clothes horse isn't used for displaying clothes - it's that thing you sling them over when they're drying, or when you're getting them organised.
Posted by New Way Of Decay (Member # 106) on :
Jesus! You should only be able to see that many ribs at a steak house.
quote:Originally posted by Jessica Rabbit: Maybe you ought to read a few more books yourself. A clothes horse isn't used for displaying clothes
Read more books or surf the internet perhaps:
Horses are also effective superheroes.
[ 23.08.2005, 09:35: Message edited by: New Way Of Decay ]
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
why would anybody read books about either clothes horses or pegs?
Posted by London (Member # 29) on :
Can you please all help me identify my stick insect? Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jessica Rabbit:
quote:Originally posted by OJ: Jasmine
If she read books she might know the difference between a clothes horse and a clothes peg.
Or maybe she does want to be a clothes peg?
Maybe you ought to read a few more books yourself. A clothes horse isn't used for displaying clothes - it's that thing you sling them over when they're drying, or when you're getting them organised.
Oh Jessica, would you like me to introduce you to the concept of popular figurative meanings in colloquial English?
Here's a book for you. The OED.
quote:Clothes-horse
a. An upright wooden frame standing upon legs, with horizontal bars on which clothes are hung out to dry or air.
b. fig. A person whose main function is or appears to be to wear or show off clothes.
Now excuse me whilst I rush home to rescue my clothes-dryer from the papparazzi. It will be soooooooo disappointed.
ps. Jessica, are you:
a) Posh Spice b) Jasmine thingy c) A troll?
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
I have to say, OJ, I've never heard that figure of speech before (clothes hanger I think I've heard a few times), and I did think "Clothes horse WTF?" when you wrote that, but then I don't read fashion magazines. That definition's not listed my dictionary (Collins), either.
Interestingly (lol) dictionary.com offers a different interpretation again. It's no wonder Jasmine got confused.
[ 23.08.2005, 10:02: Message edited by: Thorn Davis ]
Posted by Abby (Member # 582) on :
Crumbs. Arent modela supossed to have nice faces?
Also, once you have identified the stick insect please help me find a party venue!
Posted by herbs (Member # 101) on :
Jasmine seems to be using Posh (vulgar) as her role model - doesn't read books, and fills her lips with lard.
My dictionary - so ancient it has no covers so I don't know its make - says 'clotheshorse: inf a dandy'. So... similar.
[ 23.08.2005, 10:04: Message edited by: herbs ]
Posted by Abby (Member # 582) on :
Wow, it looks like I was drunk when I wrote that!
Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Interestingly (lol) dictionary.com offers a different interpretation again. It's no wonder Jasmine got confused.
I don't think that's actually a different definition Thorn. It tends to be quite pejorative.
See for example a Grauniad piece talking about Audrey Hepburn.
quote:but it was Hepburn who first popularised this cool, elegant style. Not that she was just a dull clothes horse. The actor's life encompassed a traumatic second world war in Holland
I prefer the OED (online's) Mark Twain quote. For non-subscribers:
quote:1889 ‘MARK TWAIN’ Yankee xxxiii. 378, I could see her [sc. England] erect statues and monuments to her unspeakable Georges and other royal and noble clothes-horses.
I'll get my coat (stand).
Posted by Jessica Rabbit (Member # 776) on :
Oh Ok. In my defence however, I don't think that that figurative meaning of 'clothes-horse' makes any more sense (less, even) than 'clothes-peg'. I mean - it's pretty much an insult to herself if that was what she meant.
[ 23.08.2005, 10:14: Message edited by: Jessica Rabbit ]
Posted by New Way Of Decay (Member # 106) on :
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: That definition's not listed my dictionary (Collins), either.
I find that Thorn has really grown as a person since he's owned up to his persistent kleptomania.
c.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
NWOD. Do you want a pint tonight.
EDIT:
if so, you will have to call me because I cannot call/text out on my phone, and I am about to leave netcaff
[ 23.08.2005, 10:17: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
Posted by London (Member # 29) on :
If you see him, can you punch him for that rubbish joke? Ta.
Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jessica Rabbit: Oh Ok. In my defence however, I don't think that that figurative meaning of 'clothes-horse' makes any more sense (less, even) than 'clothes-peg'. I mean - it's pretty much an insult to herself if that was what she meant.
I fear she may not have noticed the backhandedness of the compliment.
Anyway, what_I_have_learned_from_this_conversation_is .... that I should not be bitchy. I have looked deep inside myself and realised that I can change. It may not be *quite* *an* *apology* Jessica Rabbit, but the punctuation is so flowery and from the heart that it's even better than that. It's about the transformation folks, it's about the spirt.
Think I've gone mad? Watch America's Next Top Model. It's a pop-psych car crash a minute, I promise.
edited to remove spoiler link.
[ 23.08.2005, 12:07: Message edited by: OJ ]
Posted by H1ppychick (Member # 529) on :
I love America's Next Top Model. I was really rooting for sexually-confused (and according to certain websites, possibly gender-confused) Michelle to get to the end, but no, she departed tearily and meekly in South Africa. I really want that beeyatch Keenyah to get her comeuppance and both of the other two remaining (Naima and Kahlen) to completely kick her big ol' ass, but I doubt it'll happen; real life doesn't usually end with a morality tale.
Posted by H1ppychick (Member # 529) on :
Bollocks, I looked at your link and now I know the result. OJ you smell. Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
quote:Originally posted by H1ppychick: Bollocks, I looked at your link and now I know the result. OJ you smell.
FUCK! I'm so sorry. I didn't know the result either and I've just spoiled it for myself.
I smell.
Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
quote:Originally posted by H1ppychick: I really want that beeyatch Keenyah to get her comeuppance and both of the other two remaining (Naima and Kahlen) to completely kick her big ol' ass, but I doubt it'll happen; real life doesn't usually end with a morality tale.
Actually I do think that this programme is quite transparently a morality tale, at least in some of its aspects. It's certainly very moralistic.
It doesn't allow anyone to succeed unless they humble themselves (usually before Tyra rather than God, but its a distinction Tyra doesn't tend to make anyway). Confession, again to Tyra, is rewarded as a sign of commitment, change and progress. The sexually confused and or/reluctant to confess are afflicted by weeping sores. (Okay I don't know how they managed this one but Chaucer would have been proud). Early on in the series one girl even passed out/faux fainted in a cruciform pose in front of the panel. Don't even get me started on Kahlen and the 7 deadly sins.
If you're still speaking to me, please do impart the Michelle gossip. I didn't even realise she was a wrestler FFS.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
