Thursday 24 June 2010

Misplaced patriotism?

Yesterday England breathed a collective sigh of relief as our World Cup team scored a long-overdue victory that secured our place in the next stage of the competition.

The relentless hype surrounding the England campaign may have calmed down momentarily, but as Sunday’s showdown against Germany – already being hailed as a rerun of the infamous 1966 final – approaches, rumours of dressing-room drama are already coming to the fore.

Admittedly, I’m not the greatest football fan, but I think we need to get our priorities sorted here. For starters, the World Cup so far has been painfully bland. Performances have been lacklustre and uninspiring (Spain’s defeat to Switzerland, England’s failure to dominate an easy group), to such an extent that strong teams haven’t even made it past the group stages (shame on you, Italy and France).

And yet, the press has still managed to extract stories out of this gloom. John Terry’s comments – and Fabio Capello’s subsequent backlash – were immediately pounced upon and whipped up into a media frenzy of ridiculous proportions. You wouldn’t even have known that the emergency budget was announced the day before, such was the media dominance of the England squad. Even my school, currently immersed in exams and supposedly promoting ‘sensible attitudes’ towards revision, actually went to the lengths of rescheduling our General Studies paper so that it would finish in time for us to watch the England-Slovenia match. I think it’s time we took a break.

In fact, hidden behind the oppressive shadow of the World Cup is another competition that has recently begun – Wimbledon. And unlike the tedious matches we’ve endured in the World Cup so far, Wimbledon has been home to some absolute corkers. Federer got through to the next round by the skin of his teeth, Nadal came up against surprisingly stiff competition, and whilst Rooney’s ankle and Green’s fingers have been intensely scrutinised, Murray’s seemingly optimistic Wimbledon chances seem to have been woefully overlooked. The real thriller, however, was the 11-hour battle between Isner and Mahut fought in the outlying depths of Court 18. It was a match of epic proportions, smashing numerous world records and stretching out over three exhausting days. And yet it was still overshadowed by the news of Italy’s defeat to Slovakia or Beckenbauer’s comments on England’s chances.

Green: the face says it all really.

It strikes me that if we continue to obsess so rapaciously over our World Cup campaign, it’ll be over before we know it. There’s sometimes a fine line between patriotism and aggression, one that has already been crossed by many over-zealous fans. Let’s keep it calm, shall we? What both ourselves and our players need now is to take a break from all the unhealthy attention being paid to the minutiae of our campaign and come back to face Germany feeling refreshed and revived. We need to stop the incessant fixation on what our players are up to and allow them to focus with the game in hand. With a bit more detachment and a more mature attitude, a win could well come as a pleasant surprise.

Monday 14 June 2010

Let them eat cake

Whilst working at a wedding this weekend, my long-held suspicions were confirmed: the cupcake proliferation truly is global. The Malaysian bride opted for a mountain of cupcakes instead of a traditional wedding cake, to the rapture of guests.

But why, all of a sudden, have we developed such a fascination with these iced concoctions? Why is it that on practically every street corner I pass yet another bakery about to open shop? What is it that has caused this sudden sugar rush?

I blame the recession. Cupcakes offer a bite of self-indulgent luxury without the sickening price tag. And leftover crumbs are a lot easier to explain to whoever’s paying than a pair of Jimmy Choos.

And at a time of widespread unemployment and public malaise, the magical, alchemic process of turning glorified gloop into a fluffy cake is utterly rewarding. Watching someone take a bite out of the fruits of your efforts means so much more than an impersonal store-bought box of chocolates.

Suffice to say that I’ve got the bug. Any excuse to get in the kitchen (revision procrastination being the current favourite) and I’m in there like a shot, cranking up the mixer or liberally pouring vanilla extract to my heart's content. And even though I delight in testing the finished product (plus the mandatory mouthfuls of mixture, of course), the icing on the cake has to be seeing other people relish the results. So dig in.


Me with the multitude of cakes, cookies and other baked bits and bobs that I made for my Mum's partner's 60th birthday last month.

Monday 7 June 2010

Preened, primped and Plummered

Last night I caught up with the latest episode of Junior Apprentice, and my oh my were my flames of admiration for Zoe Plummer rekindled.

I wish I was brave enough to wear red lipstick.

Admittedly, I don’t much admire her business style, but I definitely have some serious wardrobe envy towards her. It certainly takes some nerve to negotiate deals wearing high-waisted shorts or mustard yellow tights, and her nautical jacket worn with white tights is ridiculously cute. She even managed to make a cupcake outfit look cool by topping it off with a red beret, as if it were the cherry on top.

That is one brave haircut missy.

What a shame that she threw a wobbly before meeting the tailor who bespoked (crikey Alan Sugar, quite a hip neologism there!) their outfits. I would have thought that would have been right up her street. Still, my disappointment was assuaged by Arjun’s smile. I actually could eat him up, he is that cute.

Nom nom nom.

Wednesday 2 June 2010

I want to give you a burning lustful kiss on your naughty bare bum

When most people hear the name James Joyce, they associate it with the genius behind ‘Ulysses’ or the creator of ‘Dubliners’ and ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’.

However, my understanding of the author was somewhat transformed upon the discovery of these gems:
http://loveletters.tribe.net/thread/fce72385-b146-4bf2-9d2e-0dfa6ac7142d

Absolutely hilarious. Who would have thought that on those lonely nights when one would have expected him to have been planning Leopold Bloom’s latest escapade, he was actually living out a fetish for soiled undergarments and flatulent women?

To NORA
Dublin 8 December 1909
My sweet little whorish Nora I did as you told me, you dirty little girl, and pulled myself off twice when I read your letter. I am delighted to see that you do like being fucked arseways. Yes, now I can remember that night when I fucked you for so long backwards. It was the dirtiest fucking I ever gave you, darling. My prick was stuck in you for hours, fucking in and out under your upturned rump. I felt your fat sweaty buttocks under my belly and saw your flushed face and mad eyes. At every fuck I gave you your shameless tongue came bursting out through your lips and if a gave you a bigger stronger fuck than usual, fat dirty farts came spluttering out of your backside. You had an arse full of farts that night, darling, and I fucked them out of you, big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole. It is wonderful to fuck a farting woman when every fuck drives one out of her. I think I would know Nora's fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also.

You say when I go back you will suck me off and you want me to lick your cunt, you little depraved blackguard. I hope you will surprise me some time when I am asleep dressed, steal over to me with a whore's glow in your slumberous eyes, gently undo button after button in the fly of my trousers and gently take out your lover's fat mickey, lap it up in your moist mouth and suck away at it till it gets fatter and stiffer and comes off in your mouth. Sometimes too I shall surprise you asleep, lift up your skirts and open your drawers gently, then lie down gently by you and begin to lick lazily round your bush. You will begin to stir uneasily then I will lick the lips of my darling's cunt. You will begin to groan and grunt and sigh and fart with lust in your sleep. Then I will lick up faster and faster like a ravenous dog until your cunt is a mass of slime and your body wriggling wildly.

Goodnight, my little farting Nora, my dirty little fuckbird! There is one lovely word, darling, you have underlined to make me pull myself off better. Write me more about that and yourself, sweetly, dirtier, dirtier.

JIM


Brilliant. I strongly believe these ought to be published and sold alongside copies of his other ‘masterpieces’.