Dutch Divilment

Come 9.45 tomorrow morning, the Bear and I will be squeaking with excitement as we board a plane that'll take us to Amsterdam for five days of mischief and frolics on a houseboat. A HOUSEBOAT! In a shock twist, I'm actually packed and everything which is very unlike me, although I ended up doing it in my underwear due to constant trying on of clothes I was bringing as I seemed to have completely forgotten what everything looked like on me.

A few days ago I came to the conclusion that I had absolutely NOTHING to wear for fuck-acting around Amsterdam and its tremendous environs and did what any reasonable girl would do. I panicked and tried on around 38 different things in Penneys. After getting annoyed at the fact that I appear to be a size eleven in AWear, finding myself trapped in a pair of Topshop skinny jeans, buying and then returning a floral dress from Forever 21, I eventually calmed down by picking up this spotty navy gúna in River Island.

Yes. This will do nicely.

Given the indecent amount of fun we had the last time around, the odds are pretty much in our favour that it'll be at LEAST twelve kinds of amazing. At LEAST. Hooray!

Hero In A Half Shell

In American burlesque of the forties and fifties, competition was fierce among dancers constantly trying to outdo each other. It became the age of the prop, with sights like Rosita Royce and her bikini of trained doves that would fly away on her command, Linda "Cupid Doll" Brigitte who would swirl about in a giant champagne glass and Lili St. Cyr who playfully splashed around in a transparent bathtub all performing to packed houses. My favourite story from this age of extravagant props and imaginative dancers concerns Kitty West, who performed an act as Evangeline The Oyster Girl in New Orleans.

Kitty West aka Evangeline The Oyster Girl

In 1949, Evangeline was the headliner of the Casino Royale burlesque house on Bourbon Street, with a routine that involved her rising up out of a giant oyster shell, stripping to a jazz soundtrack and dancing with a giant pearl. She even dyed her hair green for a while, to evoke the idea of seaweed. However, a rival water-themed act soon came swishing into town in the shape of Divena and her 300 gallon water tank in which she performed an underwater striptease.

Divena "The Aqua Tease"

OH NO THEY DI'INT.

Evangeline mid-performance. (Note Divena's tank on the right. Not only was she trying to muscle in on The Oyster Girl's claim to aquatic fame, she was encroaching on her stage space! The WAGON!)

The management at the Casino Royale immediately gave Divena top billing, a move which Evangeline was having absolutely none of. One night, while Divena was doing her nautical thing, Evangeline had decided "balls to this" (possibly not in those exact words, however) and marched onstage wielding an axe.

"I just wanted to break the tank into a million pieces, and I did. I went out there and I just started pounding away at the bottom. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I was just in such a rage that I didn’t want her to take all the spotlight."

The furious stripper smashed the tank open, sending water crashing over the edge of the stage, drenching the audience and leaving a bewildered Divena spluttering at the bottom of it. Apparently, before the startled performer even had a chance to crawl out of the destroyed tank, Evangeline reached in and pulled her hair, as if she hadn't already gotten the message loud and clear.

Take that, you soggy bitch!

Yeah. You better recognise.

Conveniently, a photographer from Life magazine was in the attending crowd and managed to capture the entire incident, making it headline news the next day. Evangeline has always denied that it was a publicity stunt and insists that she had no idea that there was a photographer in the audience. Saying that though, cameras in 1949 weren't exactly the most discreet of apparatus, so he can't exactly have been Mr. Inconspicuous.

A look that seems to suggest that one should not fuck with The Oyster Girl unless one wants their head caved in from a sudden change in water pressure.

Evangeline was promptly hauled off to prison where she was photographed again and fined $10, which, considering the nationwide publicity and cover of Life she got out of it, was a total bargain.

***

Incidentally, I've been rambling on about the sexy publicity stunts pulled by the brazen ladies of the 30s, 40s and 50s over on Boob.ie, most of which involved their boobs. So that particular post contains pictures of boobs, just so's you're warned. Boobs.

Amy Amy Amy

The first time I heard an Amy Winehouse song was when Ian Dempsey played Rehab during his breakfast-time slot for Today FM. I was living just off Anglesea Street in Cork and slowly getting my act together for work that morning in my tiny bedroom that overlooked an alleyway frequented by drunk old homeless men. I remember being genuinely amazed by the voice that came streaming out of the speakers and I'm pretty sure I did that stupid thing where you stare at the stereo as if doing so will help you hear what's coming out it that bit better. Up to that point, I was vaguely aware of Amy as a brassy, mouthy London jazz singer but had never actually heard her.


There's been a huge amount of beautifully worded tributes written about her that say everything far more eloquently than I ever could (Russell Brand's piece is particularly moving), and to be honest, I still can't quite believe what's happened. As much as I love Back To Black, I really just want to watch this video for In My Bed, from Frank, where Amy slinks around an empty hotel, all Coca-Cola bottle curves, showgirl legs and raw, spectacular talent.



Gorgeous.

Oxemorons

Well how about that. I actually went and achieved my aim of making it out of Punchestown both alive and relatively unscathed. (Save for a smattering of sunburn on my shoulders - I know, SUNBURN at an Irish festival! It's unheard of!) I genuinely wasn't sure if that would be the case after the helpful and terrifying comments on my last post and hearing that Oxegen is the only festival that the security guards are required to wear stab vests at, but we somehow pulled it off.


As I sat by the tent drinking cans with T Cup and her sister, observing the festival attendees passing through the campsite, it felt a bit like a wildlife programme. That is, if David Attenborough wore giant sunglasses and the wildlife in question consisted of drunk, half naked teenagers.

It seems that boys favour walking around with a hand down the front of their pants. Or in one case, BOTH hands. BOTH hands were actually shoved down the front of his pants as he wandered about. What the holy fuck is all that about? The less skangery variety seem to think that everyone wants to hug them, and much of the weekend was spent humouring seventeen year olds with high fives for fear of being called a cunt. The girls inexplicably appear to enjoy writing on each others arms and legs (who brings markers to a festival? WHO?) and wear denim hotpants with the mandatory two inches of ass cheek hanging out. I swear their shorts were wedged so far up their arses they must have been able to taste the frayed denim. All weekend it was wall-to-wall ass on show.

Anyway, aside from just not getting kids today, there was some most enjoyable music to be encountered, at which I found myself:

* Dancing in the Electric Ballroom while Bitches With Wolves were their usual exuberant, sparkly and ferociously fun selves, with their cover of Toca's Miracle sending the crowd into a disco frenzy.

* Catching Weezer play My Name Is Jonas and a cover of Teenage Dirtbag, at which point I sniffily decided that this crowd of kids probably thought they were actually Wheatus.

* Having Joyce Country Céilí Band lodged in my head until Tuesday after seeing The Saw Doctors.

* Coming to the conclusion that The Black Eyed Peas and Foo Fighters are actually the polar opposites of each other in terms of live performances. You see, will.i.am and his motley crew are probably the worst band on the planet, but their live show is actually sort of entertaining, thanks solely to an abundance of lasers and great visuals, even though their songs are criminally awful. Whereas Dave Grohl and the lads crank out hit after tremendous hit with inescapable charisma and enthusiasm and no reliance whatsoever on fancy light shows and as such, rock the pants right off you.

Dave can rock my pants off any time he damn well likes.

* Squawking along happily at Fight Like Apes and their typically raucous and demented set. May Kay emerged onstage dressed like a version of Morticia Addams that had decided to take up crime-fighting, with the boys in the band wrapped in technicolour morphsuits. Their performance was an obscenely fun mix of whacking giant iron bars together, the title sequence from California Dreams and a trailer for Plan 9 From Outer Space being played on the big screen and May Kay clambering onto a surprised security guard's shoulders from the stage, from where she finished belting out her song.


* Being taken completely by surprise at how much I enjoyed Beyonce. Seriously, when Twitter was set alight during her Glastonbury performance, I didn't even bother changing the channel to see what all the fuss was about, and yet there I was whooping, dancing around and singing along to the Destiny's Child medley, Crazy In Love and Single Ladies, out of my mind with happiness. I have to hand it to her, girlfriend puts on one HELL of a show.




Honourable mention must go to Tinie Tempah, Two Door Cinema Club, Swedish House Mafia, Manic Street Preachers and Coldplay (who were surprisingly fun) as well as the outdoor screening of The Life Of Brian which was exactly what we needed on Sunday morning. But not Arctic Monkeys, seeing was they were shite. So despite the surrounding knackpocalypse and being wary of everyone in the crowd in general, a great weekend was had, and yet...and yet...it's still no Electric Picnic. Which can't come soon enough.

EDIT: Completely forgot to mention that Imelda May was fantastic as ever and Slash & Friends was like watching a quite good cover band. Except for the part where Fergie Ferg joined them onstage, at which point it was more like listening to a bag of cats being swung against a wall.

This Ain't No Picnic

Earlier this week, a free ticket to Oxegen was most kindly bestowed upon me. Having never been to this particular festival, and having been spoiled by year after terrific year of solid gold fun at Electric Picnic, I find myself both scared and excited about the weekend ahead. I made the mistake of reading this article a few days ago, which served to frighten the bejaysus out of me and envision a three day stint spent as a paranoid wreck, but nevertheless to Punchestown I go.

The weather forecast is awful and I'm well aware that the surrounds will be nothing like the fairy-lit forest or rolling green hills of Stradbally. The only rolling green things I expect to encounter are discarded cans of Tuborg. Then again, with a hipflask of rum stuffed into each cherry-print welly boot, I'll make it my mission to ascertain the perfect level of fucked up and enjoy myself enough to be undeterred and unfazed by the myriad shitfaced teenagers. Also the prospect of Fight Like Apes, Bitches With Wolves, Fun Lovin' Criminals and Foo Fighters will surely make up for any amount of mud. Right?

If all else fails I can just throw things at Amanda Brunker.

Flight Club

There once was a time when air hostesses weren't synonymous with blue eyeshadow, orange tide lines on their necks and cranky Ryanair staff. Instead of all that they were mile-high glamourpusses, coiffed and beaming as they sashayed down the aisles in gloriously silly go-go boots, pill box hats, or even hotpants depending on your choice of airline.






They appeared to be quite partial to a spot of lounging around in plane engines, which was surely somewhat irresponsible at best and downright dangerous at worst.



In even more flagrant flouting of air travel safety procedures, they also seemed to enjoy entirely blocking the steps to the plane in immense numbers, but boy did they look all pretty and coordinated in doing so.


Jeri Ryan and Zooey Dreamgirl Deschanel both rocked the retro stewardess style delightfully in Down With Love and Almost Famous, respectively.



However, American Airlines damn near ruined the experience by availing of their trolley dollies in a tremendously creepy manner for their ad campaigns.


Weird, weird, WEIRD.

(Loads more vintage air hostess pictures here, should it take your fancy.)

Tanora No More-a

Things are afoot in the Irish soft drinks industry. Very bad things. Club Orange's dopey boobfest ad has outraged and irritated everyone with at least the smallest ounce of cop on, but there's much more sinister developments that have gotten underway. It began as a rumour. Rumblings of recipe changes. Worries aired on Twitter that something wasn't quite right. However, the worst has indeed happened.

TANORA HAVE CHANGED THEIR RECIPE AND RUINED IT FOREVER.

I've previously extolled the virtues of Tanora and the very special association it has with Christmas for everyone in my family back home in Waterford. However, due to pernickety EU regulations and some top class fuckwittery, they've removed the artificial colouring that gave it it's tangerine power, rendering it useless and manky and reportedly no longer tasting like happiness, Yuletide or otherwise. I say reportedly as I haven't tasted it myself (nor do I have any intention to) but I do have it on good authority from cousins who know what they're talking about. Cousins who have since developed a thousand yard stare at the mere mention of new Tanora. One of them gravely warned me not to drink the new concoction as it will (and I QUOTE): "ruin Christmas for you". Those are not words to be taken lightly, people. Not one little bit.

Not content with having decimated the drink itself, they've also gone and fucked with the packaging, making it look like some nasty brand of Irn Bru from the eighties. The only good thing about the new label is that it distinguishes the classic delicious drink from the new muck.

The new one is on the left by the way, in case you're not familiar. And now you never will be. Waaah! Also, the old bottle shown here was swiftly added to the trolley seconds after this picture was taken. Obviously.

Members of my family are stalking the aisles of supermarkets across the county and buying up any stray remaining bottles of REAL Tanora in desperation. My mother currently has seven two-litre bottles of it stashed away at home for Christmas (seriously), seeing as it'll be the last artificially tangerine-flavoured one we will ever have.

My aunt actually rang them to complain. Furious Facebook users have descended on the Tanora fan page, reporting that the standard response to their complaints is:

"Tanora - Cork’s favourite Tangerine-flavoured sparkling drink – has recently been enhanced to make it 100% natural. As part of this, an artificial colouring has been replaced by a natural variant."

Yeah, if by "enhanced" you mean "pooed in". BASTARDS.

So. To summarise:



Not cool, guys. Not cool AT ALL.

Yes She Can

As much as I love pin-up girls like the winking, oopsie-my-skirt-blew-up cuties that adorned the walls and plane noses of WWII soldiers, I also have a soft spot for Rosie the Riveter. The be-headscarved lady of the now famous We Can Do It! propaganda posters encouraging women into the workforce, who looked like she could snap an Elvgren girl in two.


What I didn't know was that tough-girl Rosie's image was based on a photo of a seventeen year old hottie who worked as a metal presser in 1942 to help the war effort. Oddly enough, the girl in question, Geraldine Doyle, didn't know she was the inspiration for the poster either until she was 59 and completely by chance, happened upon a magazine article that explained Rosie's origins.


Geraldine actually packed in her factory job after two weeks, as she played the cello and feared an injury to her hands. Since then, the image of Rosie has permeated pop culture big time, becoming an eighties symbol of feminism and empowerment and so recognisable that Christina Aguilera, Pink and Beyonce have all referenced her in music videos over the last while.




I think my favourite incarnation is this Princess Leia version of the poster though. She'd make bits of the aforementioned pop tarts without a hair of her twisty Danish buns getting out of place.


While I couldn't say with certainty who'd win an arm wrestling match between Original Rosie and Leia Rosie, they'd both beat me and you hands down.

Mystic River

Back in April, there was a brilliant post on The Anti Room about great female TV characters, where Lisa listed eight of her favourites. Since the crafty bastards of Doctor Who have now left us hanging until autumn with their infuriating mid-season break, I've come to realise that I very definitely have a new TV heroine that would rank most highly indeed if I ever got around to compiling such a list of my own. I refer, of course, to the bouncy-haired, wisecracking, ass-kicking, Doctor-baiting River Song, played by Alex Kingston.


I have to admit that when River made her first appearance, stomping into the David Tennant-era episode Silence In The Library with her white spacesuit and spoiler-laden diary, I found her smug and kind of annoying. However, now that she's turned up so frequently in the new series as she works her way back along the mind-bending timeline she shares with the Doctor, I've realised that she's actually a fantastic addition to the series and a marvellous character in her own right.


River is a time-travelling archeologist adventurer, kind of like Indiana Jones in space, and a ferociously smart, funny woman who's more than a match for the Doctor. She switches with ease between guns (laser or otherwise) and hallucenogenic lipstick, leaving anyone who gets in her way either dead or completely bewildered as to what's just happened. She's not a lady to be trifled with and will do anything to save those she cares about.

Apart from the fact that she's a strong, fearless, astoundingly fun and relentlessly flirty character, she also has by far the most impressive and varied costume wardrobe on the show. She's liable to pop up in anything, ranging from a saucy cat-burglar outfit, a Victorian gown, a delightfully steampunky white jacket and brown leather combination, or a campy Egyptian queen disguise, having tricked some centurions into believing that she's Cleopatra, through the use of her bewitching lipstick.








On top of all that, she also gets some of the best lines since the beginning of the entire Doctor Who reboot.

Anita: How do you know they're not androids.
River: Because I've dated androids. They're rubbish.

Lux: Professor Song, why am I the only one wearing my helmet?
River: Because I don't fancy you.

River: Like I said on the dancefloor, you might want to find something to hang on to.

The Doctor: You graffitied the oldest cliff in the universe!
River: You wouldn't answer your phone!

The Doctor: Oh and this is my friend River. Nice hair, clever, has her own gun. Oh, and unlike me she really doesn't mind shooting people. I shouldn't like that, kinda do a bit.
River: Thank you, sweetie.
The Doctor: I know you're team players and everything, but she'll definitely kill the first three of you.
River: Oh, the first seven; easily.
The Doctor: Seven? Really?
River: Oh, eight for you honey.

Quelque Chose #12

River Song: Right then. I have questions, but number one is this - what in the name of sanity have you got on your head?

The Doctor: It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool.

***

Incidentally, there happens to be a fantastic reason to wear a fez this weekend, as Film Fatale are organising a screening of Casablanca in The Sugar Club on Saturday night, followed by a 1940s party. Dressing up, interacting with a film, dancing and cocktails. What more could you possibly want? Tickets here and more info on their Facebook page here.

Pendragon Female No. 4

Back in October, when I was working part time, I somehow managed to get a callback from an open casting for Camelot extras. I say somehow managed because I went to the casting day with the Bear, and if anyone would be expected to get a callback for a series set in the days of beardy, burly, long haired men, it's him with the beardy, burly, long haired head on him.

Nevertheless, t'was I who got the call to spend a day drinking tea in a Portakabin in Bray. I had a costume fitting the previous day and was assigned a spectacularly unflattering light green scratchy dress and a heavy brown cloak in which to wander about Pendragon Castle for a spell. I got needlessly excited when I was sent on my way to the hair and make up trailer, as the hair and make up in question really just meant backcombing the shit out of my hair to give it that Middle Ages rats nest look, with a few small plaits thrown in, and brown make up smushed into my face and hands to give me an authentic smudgy, dirty mush and fingernails. So hot right now.


The scene we were required in called for us to enter the set of the big hall, all agog at the impressive interior and wander along our given routes looking amazed, for we were but local merchants and had never encountered such grandeur. The direction of my track brought me right past Sinéad Cusack as the duplicitous nun and I managed to get in the way of her exit at least eight times or so. Thankfully we were eventually rearranged and it was someone else's go to be that infernal extra that kept crossing in front of her path. All my determined concentration not to step on the dress worn by the girl in front of me or knock anything over OR be distracted by how tiny and gorgeous Eva Green is actually paid off and last Friday night, who was to be seen doddering past in the background?


Me, that's who! Pendragon Female No. 4, all up in yo business! Delighted, I was. I'm still waiting to hear back about my idea for my character's spin-off series, The Girl With The Pendragon Tattoo.

Ahem.

I'll see myself out.

Away With The Birds

For quite some time now, I've been admiring the fun and quirky t-shirt designs of Lady Umbrella and when they very kindly shared a promotional code for a 15% discount on Twitter I figured that was as good a time as any to pounce. Their bright blue "Lady Umbrella Is Away With The Birds" t-shirt won me over with its turbo cute birdcage design, as well as the fact that I can be somewhat away with the birds myself from time to time. Only a few days ago a co-worker was trying to say hello to me while I was on my way to the office and had to whack me with her newspaper to get my attention.



Their customer service is faultless and tremendously friendly, as I discovered when I cleverly managed to order the wrong size from their online shop. There was no problem exchanging it and the t-shirt even arrives with cute as a button badges to boot.


The Lady Umbrella online shop can be found here and they're also at the Loft Market in Powerscourt. The Facebook and Twitter pages are definitely worth a click of the Like and Follow buttons, since they're always running great competitions and discounts. So now you've no excuse not to support a great independent designer. Consider yourself informed.