My blog probably jumped the shark a little while ago, but I have no real self-control and just continued to write. In retrospect I should probably have finished up at fifty entries and called it 'Fifty First Blogs' or something witty like that. Now, though, that I'm up to 100 posts and today marks exactly six months since I started blogging I've decided to end it once and for all.
Lauren Perkins claimed that the thoughts I blogged about were always cynical and pessimistic (yes, when she did finally grasp the idea of what a blog was she was scathing) and she is kind of right. My favourite quote of all time is Janeane Garofalo's classic "The glass is always half empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth." So putting Perkin's constructive criticism to good use I've created a new blog which will only feature things I like (photos, music, videos and some writing). Also in lieu of my writing here I will also contribute to sick twisted nightmare, a joint blog with my second best friend Nicola Cooper, which features a collection of aesthetically challeneged ephemera.
I thoroughly enjoyed writing vague and uneducated thoughts on the cultural landmarks of 2009 (there were entries on Twilight, the financial crisis, swine flu and Michael Jackson) as well as snidely reporting the quotes and habits of my friends and co-workers (my dad thought my blog was espescially harsh on Sophie, ironic as she is my biggest, and perhaps only, fan) but in the immortal words of Nelly Furtardo 'all good things come to an end', so I'm outtie.

Next time you see an old lady or man grappling with a mobile phone, savour it. Because in ten years this scene will be non-existant as the next generation of geriatrics will be almost completely tech-savvy. The thought of seeing a senior citizen texting, tweeting and listening to an iPod is just as inevitable as it is depressing.

Hard to say exactly what I mean, but:
-In The Reader, Bernhard Schlink writes in such a way that the scenes he constructs are envisioned in my mind as if they are watercolour paintings.
-Just saw the trailer for Nora Ephron's new movie, Julie & Julia, and it looks to be another of her signature creations. All of Ephron's protagonists are perky but inoffensive, homely, well-scrubbed and unnaturally sweet; comparable to daisies. These characters used to be played by Meg Ryan, until she got too old and too involved in with the surgeon's knife. Amy Adams looks set to play them for the coming decade.

Death fuck off and stop stealing our celebrities...

I know this is a little Harold Chasen of me, but obituaries make for good reading. Says Jack Gladney, the protagonist of my favourite novel, DeLillo's White Noise, "When I read obituaries I always note the age of the deceased. Automatically I relate this figure to my own age. Four years to go, I think. Nine more years. Two years and I'm dead." The reading of an obituary brings our own precious mortality to the forefront, whilst simultaenously feeling like an invasion of the deceased's privacy. With celebrity obituaries there is a third dimension- the star's achievements and character are finally judged and validated and become officially imprinted into popular culture. Celebrity obituaries give the plotlines of a life in a set of polished sentences, just as any other ordinary death notice does, but they are extended by the fact that they also sum up how the deceased celebrity shaped and/or reflected the times they lived in. And this year, sadly, the passing of famous people seems to be relentless. From Jade Goody ('Goody and Princess Diana were the most prominent avatars of a wide strand of English culture, defiantly anti-intellectualy and unashamedly emotional') to John Hughes ('His universe of jocks and nerds, socialites and misfits, rockers and rebels defined what it was to be an American teenager, and influenced a generation of movie-goers and makers') to Patrick Swayze, star's obituaries not only serve us up a neat narrative, but a chance to remember how each of them had a subtle influence on our lives, how each of them was a small brick in the house of our culture.

I'd heard mixed reviews about 500 Days of Summer, but I wasn't expecting the complete atrocity that it was. Think of a really, really bad imitation of Annie Hall, but put into a warped time machine so it's all non-linear and post-modern (ie. different), and you have this film. I disliked almost everything about 500 Days of Summer- from its desperation to be an 'indie love story' (the incesscant namedropping of alternative bands was so contrived and reeked of try-hard) to its soundtrack (which got a thumbs up from most people, but to me just sounded like a lot of female moaning, and if I wanted to hear that I would watch porn, which would have better visuals and a way better storyline). My main beef, however, was with Zooey Deschanel. How did she get such a good rep in Hollywood? Elf and Yes, Man are hardly classics. And she seems to have become the alterna-girl du jour, for no apparent reason, except that she's named after a Salinger character and has huge blue eyes. Thousands of Frankie- reading hipsters drool on Zooey-porn blogs about how she's so adorable because she sings in a folky whisper and wears floral (which does not make her cool, but rather makes her look like a freakish extra from Mad Men). Until Deschanel does more than live in Laurel Canyon and profess to loving 40s films and 70s music, her indie credentials are as faux as the latest movie in which she stars.

During high school I never really cared for the weekends, but now I'm working I await them with great anticipation. Getting carried away with excitement on a Friday afternoon is just one of many habits I've attained since I began to bring home the bacon, (another habit being that I've started to use embarrassing slang such as 'bringing home the bacon'), and they all make me feel so ridiculously plebeian.

Molly Young believes we place so much importance on styling our hair because it reflects the amount of control we have over our own lives. If this is true, the above picture would indicate that my life was a complete and utter uncontrolled train wreck circa my 18th birthday.

There are certain stories that are always guaranteed to make the news because of the general public's compulsion with the low brow. The abduction of pretty, young (white) girls, psychopaths living normal lives in suburbia, unconventional sex practices, teen pregnancy and bungled police work are good examples. Each of these alone is enough to make a headline, but the story of Jaycee Lee Dugard is an American classic, because it incorporates all of the above. What makes this so signaturely American though, above all the perverse details that have become Fox News fodder, is the moral lesson of good defeating evil, and the will to never give up hope. You can almost smell the inevitable telemovie and Oprah exclusive.

Favourite headlines of the past week: 'Little Lunch Murder', 'Secrets of Suburbia'.

The best movies to watch on a rainy Sunday afternoon are the ones my Grandpa lends me. Stylistically they are all quite similar: The running time of these movies is irrelevant, but the pace is always slow, and despite successful moments of humour, they are always underlined by a deep melancholy. Prime examples include Annie Hall, Places in the Heart and Scent of a Woman.

This afternoon I attentively observed what are regular winter scenes: smoke rising from chimneys in the cosy pink twilight, prim old ladies briskly walking their minituare, manicured dogs (jacketed in the latest styles of canine coats) and shoppers pushing their trolleys against the icy wind to make it across the car park to the safety of their automobiles. The afternoon smelt like chopped wood, and these sights and smells filled me with melancholy, mostly because I knew that afternoons like this are strictly seasonal and are coming to an end. In the warmer months ahead they expand and become more languid. In winter, afternoons morph into silent, ominous evenings quickly, the way a black gloved murderer's hand smothers the mouth of his innocent victim.

Observing a person's groceries on the supermarket conveyor-belt is the most intimate you can get with them without being naked.

With the economic slowdown in full kick for about a year now, we're still yet to hear any quality songs about the hard times we're in the midst of. They say that creativity thrives in tough conditions, and up until recently this would appear to be true. In the turbulent 60s Randy Newman sang 'Mr. President have pity on the working man', and during the 1980s recession middle America's musical god Bruce Springsteen (whose collar was just as blue as the denim jeans he wore on the iconic 'Born in the USA' album cover, pictured below) reached the pinnacle in his career, with a string of songs about lonely labourers and their troubles with work and women. The punk and grunge genres were famously conceived by angst ridden youth from the wrong side of the track, sick of the injustices they faced in their poverty stricken lower class. But after Kurt killed himself and the Seattle dress code of flannel and Doc Martens made it onto the high-fashion catwalks (it was at this time that grunge was officially declared 'dead'), the musical trail on our economic situations goes cold. In the midst of our financial crisis people still listen to 50 Cent rapping about his millions. If people of the future breezed over the music of today, the only troubles in our world would appear to be ones involving cheating lovers and messy break-ups, as penned by Miley and Beyonce.

One of the most contentious issues of our times seems to be that of children growing up too fast. 'Let kids be kids!' nervous parents squeal, seemingly helpless in the onslaught of skanky Bratz dolls and kiddie poll dancing classes, and terrified that their innocent offspring will morph into overdeveloped nymphettes. However, parental desire to shelter their children for as long as possible has always existed. Harking back a decade or so to when I was younger, the world seemed divided into two distinct groups- those children who were allowed to watch The Simpsons and those children who weren't. Parents who let the cartoon be aired in their homes were enviably cool, whilst those who didn't were strict to the point of dire embarrassment. (My parents were, unfortunately, the latter.) Whilst the content may have progressed since my childhood (Bart mooning his little yellow arse and howling 'Eat my shorts' now seems relatively tame in comparison with a Pussycat Dolls music vid) the principals have not- parents still try and shelter their children from what they believe are unsuitable influences, just as they have always done. However these days they might be doing it a little more often and a little more defensively.

Thought of the day: Sophie from Sophie's Books bears a resemblance to Robert Pattinson, both in looks and action, even though she's female and about thirty years older. For those who have no idea what Sophie looks like (and I presume you don't, unless you live in my hometown and have a penchant for dog-earred paperbacks) she is often compared to the actor who plays Hagrid in Harry Potter (I have no idea of his real name). Does this mean that when he's older, Robert Pattinson, if he donned the signature uniform of a battered Driza-Bone, would bear similarity to the hairy monstrosity that is Hagrid? All signs point to yes.

Roald Dahl was so ahead of his time using an acronym as a book title when he published The BFG way back in 1982. What suprises me is that there hasn't been a series of children's books in a similar vein released yet, seeing as acronyms become more and more prevelant in our txt happy society. I presume it's a only a small matter of time before The BFF and other abbreviated titles hit the shelves.

This morning I parked myself on the couch to find out once and for all about the old crime shows TV1 play on an endless loop they call 'Crime Time'. (Yes, this activity made me feel somewhat like a sad pathetic housewife, but the differences between me and them are minimal, so I don't really mind.)These shows, all set in the same much-mocked late 80s time frame, have dated badly thanks to the characters' penchants for pastel colours and obsolescent haristyles, as well as soundtracks crammed with corny saxophones, yet they fill the void for anyone too lazy to read Raymond Chandler's quintessential West Coast mystery novels (ie. me), and are so much more enjoyable than their contemporary counterparts (the seemingly infinite franchises of C.S.I. and Law and Order, Criminal Minds, Bones, Cold Case etc.) mainly for the reason that they are more subtle and pare the crime genre back to basics. Whereas today's crime shows are claustrophobic and dim, the classic crime series are set in sun soaked paradises (Dexter would later use a similar tropical location in blistering irony). Today, the emphasis on this genre is more reliant on grit, whilst back then it was wit. The storylines of Columbo et al., whilst simpler, are more clever and thankfully all occur without those crime-against-fashion laboratory glasses and a test tube in sight. With the exception of some detective noir examples (TV's Monk and film's Brick, both filled with appreciation of the detectives of yesteryear) so much current crime fiction takes place in forensics, where people use big tools and even bigger words, which leave me dumbfounded. Trying to unravel the more simplistic mysteries, such as those in Magnum P.I. and all its other dated counterparts is a lot more satisfying, and there is no better time than over breakfast. Equally as stimulating for the brain as the morning crossword or sudoku puzzle, 'Crime Time' comes with the added kitsch-laden visual delights. I was impressed.

It was unseasonably warm outside today. Kids played blithely on the streets, teenage girls wore high waisted denim shorts and watch faces refracted the sun and glistened. The feeling of the day was comparable to that of wearing no underwear, sleeping at the opposite end of your bed or looking around a room after having just rearranged the furniture- slightly titillating, but not quite right.

My grandmother sure keeps her finger on the pulse. At dinner last night she managed to keep up with every topic of conversation from emos to Facebook. To make sure she wasn't just putting on a hip, educated front, I questioned her further when talk turned to The Ivy. "What do people do at this place?" I asked. "They swan around, swim in that disgusting pool and take drugs," Grandma replied without missing a beat. She may be ageing, but her sense of perception is still so very ripe.

Just heard a hip-hop song on the radio with the lyrics 'I'm trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful'. I almost died on the spot. Surely the singer is being ironic (highly likely, as after Googling the lyrics I discovered the song is called "Sexy Bitch") because after all, isn't hip-hop's entire premise based around the antithesis of treating women with respect?

There is something so admirable about Peaches Geldof's desperate and unending attempt to be cool. Peaches has gone to great lengths to try and attain cool (a coke addiction, a flippant Vegas marriage, numerous rock star tatts and a move to Brooklyn) and at times seems on the cusp of achieveing it (she seems to possess an enviable list of hip friends and a reasonable intelligence). However, it's as if Peaches was born with some kind of birth defect where she was missing the cool chromosone, meaning that no matter how many indie musicians she marries or how many references to obscure movies she posts on her Twitter, she is unable to attain this allusive quality for which she strives and centres her entire existence around. However, her diligence in this situation should be noted and respected.

I GOT REALLY BORED AND MADE ANOTHER BLOG YOU CAN SEE HERE TO PUT MY PHOTOS AND MAYBE SOME OTHER THINGS ON. IF YOU ARE AS EQUALLY AS BORED AS ME (DOUBTFUL) YOU SHOULD CHECK IT OUT.

Proof that my days as a teenybopper are well and truly over:
-I don't know a single song by the Jonas Brothers.

-I had to ask a friend who Kristin Stewart was.

I often plan to maximise the potential of my days off work by outlining a full to bursting schedule of activities. However, in reality these schedules evaporate and I spend these precious days at home in my dressing gown, like Hugh Hefner, but minus the Playmates.

Dash Snow (1981- 2009)

Snow's explicit portrayals of the sexual and drug-taking excesses of his circle created a popular stir, but divided critical opinion. His detractors thought of him as just another rich kid with a Polaroid and a drug habit. Yet his fans – of which there are many – believe that he was one of the most talented artists working in New York. Benjamin Godsill, a curatorial associate at the New Museum, said Mr. Snow’s work “captures this period bracketed by the fall of the World Trade Center and the fall of the financial system.”

Why is it that all children who die young- murders, brain tumours, freak ski accidents- are described as popular? Is it the most virtuous adjective we can label someone as? And they all seem to be reasonable looking. The fact that these children have competently avoided common pubescent tragedies (an undesirable physicality, loneliness), but seem to possess an errie magnetism towards the greatest tragedy of all- premature death- gives their passing an added weight.

Perfection.

My friend Claire is hosting a a nineties themed party, which got me to thinking about all the noughties themed parties of the future, of which I have a few questions. When is too early to host one? 2012 or 2013? Or do we have to wait longer before we fold this decade away, and visit it wistfully and only occassionally via an exaggeraterd costume and a set of iconic songs? And who will everyone dress up as? Which of today's personalities will transcend the temporary and become icons forever wrapped in an aura of nostalgia?

So disappointed to hear they're making another Sex and the City movie. The first one was horrific enough. And I doubt there's room for Carrie Bradshaw in the next decade. Her character is so quinetessentially aligned to a particular time (New York, when the Towers still stood and the Bessette-Kennedy's were royalty; way before Mary Louise Parker uttered the 'c word' in Weeds and the cast of Gossip Girl made Bradshaw look like a prude nanna). A new movie would be like the Beatles releasing an album in the 80s or The Breakfast Club coming into cinemas now- it just wouldn't fit. There is a time and place for everything, and sadly it has passed for Carrie and her troupe of fastidious fashionistas.

Brodan: I just ran out of ink!

Me: For the quill or for the printer?

Just a regular conversation with Brodan.

Common motifs in Simon & Garfunkel songs: clouds, rain, homesickness, sleeping lovers and restless yearning narrators, factories, shadows and moonlight, the fleeting nature of time.

Watching The Hills and tracking the way in which Heidi Montag's plastic surgeries gradually character her face with an overwhelming degree of forlornness is a fascinating activity.

Favourite recently received text message:

I cried for 2 hours, then hit the oven

After the sender's savage review of my blog, I hope she hit the oven more Sylvia Plath and less Nigella Lawson.

Stuff White People Like by Christian Lander is quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever read. So much so, I had no qualms handing over $25 for it, which for me is an epic feat. The book is simply a list of stuff 'white people' (ie. pretentious hipsters) like, and although it basically sends up my entire existence (included on the list are some of my all-time favourite things, with a sarcastically droll description of each; High School English Teachers, Hating People Who Wear Ed Hardy, The Ivy League and Sweaters- "young white people think it is very cool to wear clothes that are popular with senior citizens") I'm totally okay with it. This probably has something to do with the fact white people like self-deprecating humour (it's #103 on the list).
If, unlike me, you don't want to pay for Stuff White People Like in book form you can check it out free of charge here

So Chris Brown is a 'trending topic' on Twitter. I have no real opinion of him, except that he makes me feel inferior, because we are both basically the same age and he is making lots more money than I am, but more to the point, having way more sex.

My sister owns several Rage Against The Machine albums. This recent discovery unsettled me greatly. Although it sounds dramatic, it was as if I didn't know who she was anymore. Her music tastes had always been more moderate (the edgiest she ever got was when she downloaded a Good Charlotte album from iTunes), and I felt betrayed she had managed to smuggle these screamo CD's through our front door without even telling me. However, upon further contemplation I realised that liking this affronting music is a stage all sixteen year olds go through, in a vicious quest to have the stereotypical angst-ridden adolescence The Catcher in The Rye says you should be having. Just as my sister has Rage Against the Machine, I had Nirvana, although the interest was brief (and paled pathetically in comparison to Chris' obsession which continues to this day) and had less to do with their actual music, and more to do with the Kurt and Courtney melodrama, complete with rainy Seattle weather, Frances Bean and various drugs and mental issues, that was meticulously documented by Rolling Stone. Nicola had Incubus, before moving onto more reputable names such as The Clash and The Sex Pistols, and most stereotypical teenage boys own a few Blink 182 albums, or of they are really edgy a CD from one of Tom DeLonge's side bands. This thought allowed me to relax, and let my sister listen to the wailing sounds of Killing in the Name in peace (although that is kind of a juxtaposition).

Things associated with a Sunday night: Sam DeBrito, toasted sandwiches, 60 Minutes and an impending sense of doom.

From the archives: A profile of my frenemy Melissa Kennedy, written about 18 months ago.

Melissa Kennedy could quite possibly be the subject of any of the songs sung by her favourite emo-pop-rock bands when they belt out a tune on her favourite weekly drama One Tree Hill. The lonely, pretty mall girl breaking hearts and searching for love in a teenage wasteland, iPod dangling in ears and pigeon toes clad in Converse Sneakers, a style that was affectionately dubbed ‘dorky chic’.
Boyfriends, txt msgs and other Hills-esque dramas form the plotlines for Melissa’s life, played out to an angst-ridden soundtrack detailing the lives of fast-cars and small towns in Middle America. Kennedy exists on a diet of Blue Gem take-away alone, occasionally washing down the scallops with a Lemon Ice Tea.
Despite being dismissed as a self-absorbed blonde (a la Lauren Conrad) Melissa has proved herself to be a loyal friend whose witty advertisements and articles shock all her doubters.
However, things took a turn for the worst earlier this year, with a nasty string of incidents rocking our teen queen to the core. The failure to gain her driver’s license, a falling out with His Grace Duke Brodan Lazzarini, and doubts about MySpace lover ‘Fletch’ had friends fearing for her mental health. Melissa sought solace in hair dye, dying her locks a dark brown (a metamorphosis perhaps?) and eventually recovered.
Recovery came in the form of Nicola Cooper, who can exclusively reveal their joint lunches of Kraft Macaroni Cheese and marathon sessions of DVD box-sets helped her back to life. Melissa was last seen behind the wheel of her ‘gas-guzzling’ four-wheel drive, signalling a return to her normal life.

"She was, perhaps, the last in a line that began with Betty Grable in World War II -- the bathing beauty who seemed kissed by the sun and exuded a potent combination of innocence and sexuality. But her "Charlie's Angels" jiggle-show image presaged another world. It was the one that would come to be dominated by Brooke and her Calvins and ultimately by American Apparel ads and the celebrity sex videos of Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton."

In case you hadn't noticed obscure Christian religions are so hot right now. Proof: the polygamous Henrickson's in Big Love (a favourite show of both Hel Cooper and I), 'Utah' a John Proctor-esque Mormon inspired fashion shoot in Brodan's beloved Black magazine and the rise of the fanatical promise-ring wielding sect of Young Hollywood who take inbreeding to a whole new level (the Jonas Brothers, Jordin Sparks, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus et al.) Even TIME magazine reports vampire lit (or as Nicola refers to it, "paranormal romance") has been replaced by "bonnet books", love stories set amongst the "horse and buggy piety" of the Amish. My personal favourite denomination, though, would have to be the Bretheren. Never has there been a religion so highly discussed, yet so enigmatic (with the exception of Scientology). It's safe to say that Bretherens haven't had an easy ride, thanks to numerous A Current Affair style exposes, and people mistaking their aloofness for coldness, but I find them immensely intriguing. Their cottage-industry uniforms of denim skirts and bandanas, their rigid, slightly incestuous looking faces (planes of pale, smooth skin punctuated by a pair of fierce, beady eyes) and their waterfalls of untamed hair are all gloriously hypnotising. I'm definately more amazed than appalled when I imagine the goings-on of the Bretheren world behind the dark tinted windows of their people movers.

"There were little holes in the cuffs of his thermal undershirt. It was that time of year, the time of day, for a small insistent sadness to pass into the texture of things. Dusk, silence, iron chill. Something lonely in the bone."

An account of my favourite customer: In her late forties, her hair is always unbrushed and she wears a variety of plain sweaters, all of which are covered in cat hair. However, her perfectly polished nails, nice purse (with an assortment of shiny credit cards) and Blackberry hint at a comfortable existence. She has a delicate manner, speaks in an extremely soft voice and is always very thankful. Through various meetings I pick up that she is married to an older man, for love not money, and she is the mother of a teenaged son, although she speaks of him in a way that hints distance so I figure he is at boarding school. She clutches her rolls of film in her hands like they are precious stones. Her photographs are ordinary. I have not seen her in about two months.

Her eccentric brilliance is on par with that of Michael Jackson, and in the past year she has given new meaning to the words "apology" and "working visa". Her nickname is similar to that of an early 90s rapper, and only Fran Drescher, Mary Poppins and Jo Frost are more prolific nannies than her. Happy 19th birthday ICE!

I am extremely alarmed that a majority of my 'friends' want to see Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. I think this fact calls for a major re-assessment of my life.

J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer are credited with turning youth back onto books, but where does one turn after the fat tomes of Harry Potter and Twilight have weaved their way through their own copious plotlines to the (alleged) final, epic endings? The answer is, of course, to a Popular Penguin. Every 18 year old owns a minimum of one. They're cheap (a plus, as young people are generally poor, and prefer to spend their money on drugs than novels), the available titles are steeped in merit (let's face it, Humbert Humbert has waaay more literary cred than Bella Swan), and they seem to have accidentally evolved into a subtle cultural signifier of our times. The Popular Penguin is the quickest way to get a brief overview of a person and reduce them to a cultural stereotype. Ostentatious hipsters gorge on the Hunter S. Thompson and Kerouac titles, whilst Brodan-esque Moarchists choose Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World and other apt volumes. I once received a distressed text message from a bookseller friend about an acquiantance we mutually believed was interesting. "He just came in and bought the most boring PP titles," the message read, "I'm so disappointed and confused." The PP covers are a polarising issue. Opinions are torn on whether the simple orange and cream covers scream "classic academia" or the end of the Chip Kidd book cover dream. (A friend recently claimed the books looked like a Monte Carlo biscuit in reverse, and dubbed them "too ugly" for his bookshelf. I kind of agreed). Love them or loathe them, the Popular Penguins are here to stay with another 50 titles being released tomorrow, and word is they're so good, Nicola "climaxed" when she read the upcoming titles online.

In one of her awkwardly phrased but extremely pertinent voiceovers, My So-Called Life's vacillating protagonist Angela Chase proclaimed, "It seems like some people have to die young. Like it fits them or something." Chase's choice words seem applicable to famous people. The premature passing of a star seems almost to be an annual event*. We are shocked, but also half-expectant, it's kind of a high price for living life in the fast lane- as if it fits them. There is a phantasmagoric quality about these deaths- the screaming sirens; the blinding flashbulbs of the papparazzi cameras in the media crush; the brooding, troubled shadows that inevitably lurk beneath the glitzy surface - all read like one of the deceased star's movie scripts, creating an atmosphere both eerie and surreal. It's hard to articulate what I mean, but it feels to me that the death isn't quite real, that it's just another tabloid stunt, or an extension of a movie role, and that the celebrity themself has been unable to differentiate reality from the warped fiction of their microcosmic lives until it's too late.

*The death of an icon, as with Michael Jackson (and to a lesser extent Farrah Fawcett), is much less common. Princess Diana and John Lennon are good examples. Others, however, achieve iconic status via their early death (Heath Ledger, River Phoenix), forever framed in a picture of youth, surrounded by the juxtaposing aura of possibility and devastating waste.

"When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships"- Andy Warhol, although it could have been Sophie Holmes.

Superficiality, swimming pools and sex tapes...

In a recent magazine article Bret Easton Ellis revealled he was a fan of The Hills. He quipped, in a rather Warhol-esque tone, "It's genius! Although I'm only up to season three because I can't stand to watch it on television. That little MTV logo up in the corner infuritates me. I wait until it comes out on DVD, I turn up the volume and I'm swamped by beauty." That Ellis is a fan of The Hills is no big deal. I am too. So are many people. (The Hills has undoubtable influence and its rampant popularity comes not just from its aesthetic pleasures, but from the idea that the show could be about any of us. Writes James Poniewozik, "Who hasn't imagined his or her life as a TV show, every minor drama magnified, every view airbrushed, a Natasha Bedingfield song ripping hearts out every time you sadly adjust your sunglasses at a red light?") However, without Bret Easton Ellis it's doubtful The Hills would even exist. He originally came up with the idea of rich, attractive and debauched youth running amock in Los Angeles in his novel Less Than Zero twenty years ago, and unlike The Hills, his host of characters were actually interesting, and weren't doped up on a large dose of bland (although they were doped up on everything else). That Ellis loves The Hills got me to thinking: Can you geuinely be a fan of anything that is less interesting than your own thoughts and ideas?

I just don't find Judd Apatow movies funny. At all. Is there something wrong with me? Beacuse it definately feels like it. Apatow's style is a dry mix of the Kevin Smith slacker comedy and the gross-out humour of the Farrelly brothers, and he's been dubbed the comedic voice of my generation, so I feel as if I should at least be smiling. However I appear to be the lone straight face in a sea of howling laughter. So big is Apatow Vanity Fair put him on their "New Establishment" list of 2008, calling him the 'New King of Comedy', but I still can't find anything vaguely amusing about Katherine Heigl giving birth or Steve Carrell waking up with morning glory.

The radio station at my work promises, somewhat predictably, to play “the freshest hits”, yet all it can fathom is a very myopic slice of music from the late 90s. The type of music played on this station is so specific that even after consultation with numerous music guides, I am unable to find a genre that adequately caters for it. Thus I have created my own. "End-of-the-century adolescent rock"- less confronting and demonic than Marilyn Manson and Korn, but cruder and more self-effacing than Britney, NSync and the rest of their manicured, manufactured cohorts, this music took the last remains of grunge and fused it with a kind of twisted sense of humour: think Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth, Goo Goo Dolls, Blink 182, Barenaked Ladies and Weezer amongst others. The twenty-something year old DJ’s spin the anthems from their high school glory days, creating a dripping ambiance of angst, affront sexuality and sweaty armpits; things all rather inappropriate for a commerical store. At first I loathed listening to this music that I felt was more apt as a soundtrack for one of those house parties on a bad Jason Biggs movie (eg. Loser) where everyone would drink out of those red plastic cups (I once screeched to my family that I worked in a "pathetic timewarp"), but the more I listen to this radio station, the more it grows on me. Where else would I pick up a re-newed appreciation for “Brick” by Ben Folds Five, or “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something? Sometimes I even scare myself, after finding I'm humming along to an Alanis Morisette tune. And besides, this continual playing of music from a decade ago makes me feel my job exists in the past, not in the present, and this can only be a good thing. When I think about days at work from a week ago, they kind of feel like they are lost somewhere in that clouded era of the Milennium Bug, cargo pants and Dawson's Creek.

Is it a prerequisite for General Pants employees to be the most annoying people on the face of the earth? I think so. They are almost a sub-species, distinguished by their extroverted manner, inspid dress sense and the way in which they strucutre their sentences around the words "bro" and "buddy". (Look closely and you will be able to identify a General Pants employee outisde of their work too.) Each is a slightly more or less obnxious version of the other. I once had one assistant who, whilst serving me, rapped some Lupe Fiasco track, complete with hand movements, like she was a "ghetto motha" from the Bronx.
When you enter a General Pants store the customer service borders on harassment. In between the thundering beats of the Scribe and Yeah Yeah Yeahs albums that seem to be constantly playing on repeat over the speakers, the painful assistant will attack you with a barrage of questions ("what are you up to today buddy?" "how are ya fellas?") with a sweet-as attitude. Sometimes I just have the urge to yell, "You are not cool! You look like a dickhead wearing that trilby hat indoors. Please, please, please leave me the fuck alone, and let me browse through the overpriced flannelette shirts in peace!!" I'm not asking for inspiring shop assistants (I'm quite fine with the dreary, overweight middle aged clerks at K-Mart who are so lackadaisical it's as if the store's fluroescent lighting has drained them of all life), I just want to be left alone!

Pondering the future of Cameron Diaz...


It is a confronting reminder that you are growing older and time is swifly and irrevocably moving on when watching the trailer for the upcoming movie My Sister's Keeper and realising that Cameron Diaz is now playing the role of a matriarch, as oppossed to the perky, slightly naff singleton characters she has done for the past decade or so. This decision for Diaz to make the leap as an on-screen mother means she has crossed a fine line in her career. Never again can she play her trademark happy-go-lucky singleton charatcers. Rather, all her future parts will now be confined to the role as a mother, or if she plays a singleton she will have to do so with a tired, desperate my-biological-clock-is-ticking negataivity, a mini-genre that is already thoroughly covered on (and off) screen by Jennifer Aniston.

James Frey is Nicola's writer crush. Molly Young is mine, and she is much less thuggish and much more honest than Frey (unlike him, she did not commit what is perhaps the most mortal sin of our times: lying to Oprah Winfrey). Disciplined and industrious (as well as young and pretty, too pretty to be a writer; as it is my belief that writers should be cursed with a Stephen King-esque ugliness) she churns out a remarkable amount of work: chapbooks (mine arrived from New York last week, and needless to say it's amazing), articles for prolific on-line magazines, and my favourite, her daily blog. Her quirky, idiosynchratic vignettes, such as the one below, add an extra colourful dimension to my day, and I'm totally in love.



About the Author: Steve Martin is the kind of guy who loves to write things about himself on book flaps. In fact, he has been known to write entire books just so he could write on their flaps.


Molly blogs here, but just remember when she is a hugely famous novelist in about fifteen years that I liked her first!

I'm very suspicious about Lady GaGa. She dresses in an outlandish manner ("a more cartoonish Gwen Stefani"/ "a John Galliano fashion show on (even more) crack"), and conducts herself in interviews like a drivelling loon, yet her music is so accessible. How is it possible to simultaneously produce mainstream magic like "Pokerface" and act like you're on a day trip from the mental asylum? GaGa's muse Grace Jones was absolutely eccentric, but her music was equally as odd, and thus she was genuine. An image needs to supplement the music (and vice versa), not contradict it, otherwise the whole persona comes off as wildly unauthentic, as is the case with Lady GaGa.

Questions I frequently ask myself:
-Is Portia DeRossi a real lesbian?
-Will Jason Dundas ever stop wearing Wayfarers?

Jemma MacDonald's upcoming road trip across America: 50% Kerouac, 20% Christopher McCandless, 15% Hunter S. Thompson, 10% Joni Mitchell circa the Hejira album, 5% Thelma and Louise.

"Nights on the road were full of neon signs and round-the-clock diners and the melancholy exhiliration of being alone and rootless and going someplace, anyplace."

PLATONIC POWER COUPLES:

Happy Birthday Nicola. Love you.

The most important social events in our lives (the ones we look forward to most; save our best clothes for) slowly alter with each decade we grow older. Proof:

Childhood: Birthday parties (daytime)

Teens: Birthday parties (nighttime)

20s: Outings at various clubs/bars

30s: Dinners (generally dates with prospective partners, which will eventually whittle down to one partner, who will morph into spouse)

40s: Dinners (generally with spouse and other couples to discuss children's education, house renovations etc)

50s +: Church

Text message of the day:
"Sorry i cant tell you. itll be leaked faster than a nude rihanna pic"

For about the past nine months I've been following The Selby, a blog which delves into the apartments of well-to-do, almost famous creative types, and photographs the results. Despite the fuss about these "creatives" (musicians, publishers, writers, trust-fund-kids-cum-art-students, filmmakers) one can only but notice the sameness of each abode, to the point where they all become indistinguishable. Every apartment is drowned in organised, somewhat intentional, clutter, and is guaranteed to feature at least one, if not all, of the following: stacks of rare coffee table books, a brick wall covered in asymmetrical, slanted framed prints, an impressive record collection and an abundance of kitsch memorobilia. The homes recall Claire's old bedroom, but without the hyper-colour, slightly majestical Disney tinge. And yet for some strange reason I am completely addicted to the site. It could be because I'm a busybody (I like to snoop through people's book and CD libraries), because I'm bored and have no life (the most probable answer), or because it relates to my much mocked, suprise dream of being an interior designer.

Whatever the answer, see the site for yourself here.

One of my favourite writers, James Wolcott, believes that television is currently in its renaissance period, citing Weeds, Dexter, Californication, Mad Men and The Wire as examples. TV, he argues, is more current, clever and cutting edge than cinema, and comes without its huge ego. "TV promises so much less, yet gives so much more. Dialogue that's fast, mordant and elliptical, intimate, layered, complex stories." My good friend Sophie would definately agree. She plans her evenings (or as she unashamedly admits "her life") around what's on the box. Her tastes differ from Wolcott's though. (The City, Girls of the Playboy Mansion and The Kardashians are favourites).
However, TV for me feels like it is in its final, dying stages. Littered with generic crime shows, banal sets and toothy, obnoxious reality stars, you have to go searching to find anything of quality, and who can really be fucked, when friends already send you obscure music videos and ingenious ads ("Cadbury Eyebrows" anyone?) via YouTube. Things are so bad it seems, that not even the saviour herself, Oprah Winfrey, can save television from the ashes of ruin. Perhaps she's just exhausted from all the campaigning she did with the Obamas, but these days she looks inert and haggard, and The Oprah Effect feels so spookily Stepford. Her rival, the perkier Ellen DeGeneres, is also starting to test the limits. Awash among the infomercials and made-for- TV movies that is day-time television, her saccharine skits and interviews with plastic celebrities were once feel-good, but now just feel forced. (Her interview with the recently de-lesbianised Lindsay Lohan was plain odd; check it out on YouTube.) But maybe its just me. Maybe I'm alone in thinking that if there is no on-air revolution sooner rather than later, television will surely go the way of the typewriter and the VCR.

Just finished High Fidelity. Still tossing up my favourite quote. Between "You could, if you wanted to, find the answers to all sorts of difficult questions buried in that terrible war-torn interregnum between the first pubic hair and the first soiled Durex" and "People are allowed to feel horny and fucked-up at the same time."

The song that plays over the final montage near the end of each episode of Cold Case is crucial, as the audience's sense of closure and satisfaction rests entirely upon it. And despite it being a difficult task to find a new song every week that simulataneously brings together elements of poignancy and smug vindication, it is always done in a gratifying manner.

I am a full blown hypochondriac. In the past year alone the list of diseases and conditions I have diangosed myself with include, but are not limited to, anhedonia, anxiety (particularly Generalized Anxiety Disorder, or GAD), coeliac disease, stomach cancer, anemia, chronic hayfever, marfan syndrome, testicular cancer ("I checked myself this morning, and couldn't feel anything!"), diabetes and, of course, hypochondria itself.

Already scared to death by various quotes from Revolutionary Road and The Perks of Being a Wallflower that seem to sum up my life in an indifferent, depressing manner (my favourite being "Maybe high school was my glory days, and I didn't even realise it because it didn't involve a ball"), Nicola goes one step further by calling me 'an artist that creates no art'. All this brings to mind is yet more panic and another depressing quotation, this time from Truman Capote's (amazing) travel sketch on New York. "Lunch today with M. She belongs to that sect most swiftly, irrevocably trapped by New York, the talented untalented: too acute to accept a more provincial climate, yet not quite acute enough to breathe freely within the one so desired, they go along neurotically feeding upon the fringes of the New York scene. For artists without an art, it is always a tension without release, irritation with no resulting pearl. But M. deserves a finer destiny than to pass from belated adolescence to premature middle age, with no intervening period and nothing to show." Perhaps I can take some cold comfort from my own favourite quote by Hemingway, who said "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."

The question "If you woke up tomorrow with the choice of looking like anyone in the entire world, who would it be?" is a very complex one. Case in point: three of my friends, all of whom if given the opportunity to look like anyone on the face of the earth would end up choosing only slightly more attractive versions of themselves. Nicola would like to be transformed into Kate Beckinsale, Chris would prefer the scultped, but ultimately alien, facial features of Zac Efron (look closer and he bears similarities to Michael Jackson in transition from black to white circa 1985) and in his perfect world Brodan would look like, well, Brodan. The main reason is not because my friends love the way they look (which they do), but has more to do with the fact that human beings are not adept to extreme change, even in worlds of complete fantasy.

With the exception of Sophie, any person who cites their favoutie band as U2 is so preposterously boring they are not worth a second of your time. Also, Bono is the most pretentious person on the face of the earth. No exceptions.

The swine flu, like other highly feared and publicised diseases before it (SARS, bird flu), fills me with a little bit of excitement. Not because I'm sadist, but because it brings a dramatic nuance and a sense of commotion to our rather flat and contained times.

In the bookstore a few weeks ago upon seeing numerous copies of Anthony Keidis' autobiography Scar Tissue, I remarked to a friend, "How is this still selling? Hasn't everyone read it already?" When he replied he hadn't, and I admitted as much, I began to realise that due to its wide distribution it has become embedded into our consciousness, making it feel like everyone has read it, when no one actually has. This is a strange phenonemon, but definately not an isolated one. The actress Meryl Streep is another good example. Despite being so acclaimed and prolific, has anyone actually seen her films? (Except perhaps The Devil Wears Prada and Mamma Mia!, and if this is the case, you should admit to neither.)

This time of year evokes the song "Young Pilgrims" by The Shins, all songs by The Decemberists, Annie Proulx's short stories (they are synonymous with clear blue skies and stiff denim jackets), the smell of firewood and the texture of flanelette sheets.

Polarising characters of fiction: Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, Carrie Bradshaw, Lauren Conrad (more or less fictional), Edward Cullen.

Having now been blogging for an entire month, the reception has been mixed. Lauren Perkins, still perplexed by the idea of a blog, was harsh. "It's just slabs of writing and pictures... Like who would actually read it? What the fuck?!" (However, upon learning that the blogs were my own work, and not just copied and pasted from other sources, she claimed she would review her decision. "Oh, so you wrote what's on your blog? I'm going to go back and read it now.. I thought you just got stuff from newspapers.") Jack Talbert claimed that whilst it showed signs of promise at the beginning, my blog lapsed into a crude whirl of "pussies, sex and mandarins". Brodan was slightly more kind, claiming whilst it was sad that this is how I'm spending my time, the blogs are well written. Leading the list of fans was Lia 'Lightbulb' Boulton, who admitted when she logged on and there were no new entries she became suicidally depressed. Others were yet to form an opinion, most notably Chris Whitton, for he has yet to look at the site, for fear it would "have lots of big words in it."

In Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, the novel's protagonist, college professor Chip Lambert, teases a student he is sleeping with by "running his erection up and down the keyboard of her computer, and applying a gleaming smudge to the liquid-crystal screen." The New York Review of Books calls it "the first great American novel of the 21st Century."

Notorious local child star Chris Whitton (a less intriguing Macaulay Culkin, a more loveable Hayley Joel Osment) heads off today to do the rite-of-passage Greyhound bus trip across America, and spend an inappropriate amount of time in Mexico's gay resorts. Here's hoping he doesn't O.D. in Tijuana, a la Marissa Cooper, or come home with the same disease that killed Freddie Mercury. GOOD LUCK CHRIS!

Never having visited one I had glorified sex shops, seeing them as inextricably linked to some kind of erotic, excitable pleasure. I often wondered what kind of titilating mystery took place inside when passing the inconspicuous store fronts of "XXX World" and "Pleasure Dome". Last week my curiousity was satisfied when a group of friends and I decided to venture up the badly carpeted stairs and enter an adult store for the first time. Needless to say, it was not the hedonistic haven I had in mind. The expected arousing, oversexed ambiance was absent, replaced instead by a suspicious stench. A seedy man browsed the "literature" section, and the desparate employee watched us intently trying to make a sale. Instead we gaped down rows of fetish DVD's (a naked, obese women in her fifties sitting on a bed with a bucket of chicken stared out to me from the cover of "Big Ol' Bitches") until we reached the erotic toy wall, where the 50cm dildo named "The Punisher" took pride of place. Scarlett whimpered at the leather whips and cuffs in the bondage section, Brodan spied a butt plug, and we all ran gagging from the squalid, sleazy premises. This whole experience served not just as a wake-up call that pornography is unenticing, but as a means of hampering any future erections for the rest of my life.

Worthy of two kudos:
-Honeycomb Crush Tim-Tams
-Connoisseur Cookie and Cream Ice Cream
-Underbelly Season 1

I can only sleep on one pillow. This idiosyncrasy, along with other less subtle ones, such as the fact I don't eat cheese (I have disowned friends who have not known this), and when I brush my teeth I make the face of a buck-toothed beaver, essentially make up who I am. These actions are not merely shallow lifestyle choices, and come with their share of disadvantages (eg. I can't enjoy cheese and crackers, and could never star in a Colgate commerical). Yet only being able to sleep on one pillow is the most problematic. The pillow cannot be too thin (otherwise it's just like sleeping on no pillow at all) or too thick (like sleeping on two pillows, and despite being the owner of a relatively long neck, I cannot manage this), meaning that perfect pillow that sits somewhere in between, is so illustrious and hard to find. So imagine my sheer delight when I found the perfect one in a hotel a few weeks back. It was completely compatible with my nocturnal behaviour. Night after night I had ten glorious hours of sleep, and woke up with my head propped up behind this precious piece of manchester. I decided right then and there that I had to steal it. I would take it home, and have my nights spent in absolute comfort. Since coming home, however, I have tossed and turned for hours every night, and wake up in the morning sleeping on my bony elbow, with the pillow strewn across the floor. I can think of no other reason, excpet karma for my petty theft.

Whilst watching the entertaining yet unfulfilling documentary Bra Boys, Nicola chortles through all scenese involving fights and drunken misdemeanours. "That's just rude!" snaps Brodan, as a teenage gang harass a bus driver on screen. Nicola responds that she finds the incident 'funny', and misbehaviour 'glamorous'. "There is nothing glamourous about misbehaviour, it's not even romantic! I can see how something like revolution could be seen as romantic, but misbehaviour is just disgraceful," Brodan replies. But Nicola, with her penchant for N.W.A's Fuck the Police and Sex Pistols' Anarchy in the U.K., completely disagrees.

The real reason why I want to go to Yale.