The illuminations in Blackpool are in full swing so we're off there tonight to bask in their glow. I love autumn at the seaside.
*throws stuff over shoulders from under-stairs cupboard looking for scarfs and wellies*

My 2nd favourite Sedaris, Amy, has voiced a cartoon portion of a live action movie due next year called 'Puberty Pals'. This clip is hilarious, mucky, horny and wrong.

I know Berlin and I think it's time Darren did too. The worlds first (and only) Ramones musuem just opened there. Hey ho lets go!

As if the PSP wasn't fabulous enough. Now some of the worlds gayest dressmakers have created carry-bags for the little beauty. Miu Miu, Jeremy Scott, Burberry (oh dear), Pucci, Fendi and Kishimoto have been busy sewing and glueing and now the creations are on sale only at Collette in Paris (the Collette website is stunning, look out for the little dogs who draw pictures).

The camping trip boy-toy.

Gun toting hard-faced bitch alert.

All hair is this big in hell.

Ever wonder about the stories behind the folk in old photo's? I do. LOOK AT ME is a collection of found photos. These photos were either lost, forgotten, or thrown away and then found again in old boxes, junk shops and car boot sales. What's the story morning glory?:

Fart is short for funny-art and this is such a good fart. The latest big 'art' piece in NYC is a barge filled with trees called 'Floating Island' driving around the island of Manhattan. Paid for by the Whitney (the museum not the crack-ho-diva) so obviously to be taken seriously. However, some crazy wags thought it would be fun to follow the barge with a much smaller boat on which they'd erected a replica of one of those orange gates that Christo put up in Central Park last winter. The little boat with the orange gate on it was also towing an even smaller boat in which a man sat filming the chase on a video camera. I expect that video tape to be next years 'must-see' event when it is projected onto the thighs of Paris Hilton as she opens and closes her legs in an installation called 'I'll Fuck For Drugs' at the Guggenheim.
Full story and pictures here.

It crept upon us and then overtook our weekend and so we shot the Germans mercilessly with a variety of hefty-in-the-hand weapons. Our PS2 machine was finally installed in the sitting room (previously only allowed in the spare room on a portable TV) and then the hours were sucked from our two days off work by partaking in the end of WW2 allied operations.
I did manage to play a few rounds of golf this weekend as I finally tracked down a PSP (look at that pic and tell me you aren't hard for it) on Friday morning and have been perfecting my swing with this addictive game inbetween blowing the heads off Nazis. The music playing technology of the PSP is amazing and has the best sound quality of any MP3 player I’ve ever heard (the rumours of a Bang and Olufsen collaboration with Sony for the PSP are true I think). To top off our weekend we watched Downfall (how appropriate) on DVD last night. Brilliantly creepy, superb script and Berlin looked stunning on its knees and wheezing its last breath. Heil Sony!

The Tinguely fountain.

Famous squirty fountains by this Swiss artist.

This is a famous piece of rusty art but I've forgotten its name.

Nice iron work.

Darren bimbling.

Portaloo

The pristine beautiful backstreets of Basel are great for bimbling and peeping through windows and garden gates. This portaloo sorta spoiled the view though.

Teaching warfare Munster style.

These soldiers were being given a lesson in ancient warfare. They are studying the famous St george and the Dragon statue on the walls of the Munster (the Munster is a really big church type thing with a funny name).

This pig faced tram proves the Swiss have a sense of humour.

Lots of trams in Basel (like Blackpool).

Back to Basel

This was the view from our bedroom window in Basel. It's the train station and was beautiful inside with painted fresco's of Swiss scenes dating back to the start of last century. There was a brilliant bakery where we bought 'fancies' for breakfast on the train on Sunday mtorning.

I was never fond of Halloween because it was always such hard work carving the face of Elaine Stritch into an old turnip (two eyes, a hole for a nose, jagged teeth and a candle for a brain). I saw this costume (via WoW) and just knew that I would be trick or treating in my street this year.

Status Quo are soon to be seen on Coronation Street playing themselves. The blond one with the crap wet perm seems to have a thing for tool belts and electricians (nowt wrong with that we say).

Wikipedia is a fantastic idea: an online encyclopedia written and updated by anyone with an internet connection. The problem is that relying on your average blogger for building an encyclopedia (or anything, for that matter) is that many of them are tasteless, borderline illiterate, and astonishingly immature. Of course, if you’ve spent any time reading this blog you will know that. Anyway, it appears that some entries on Wikipedia are being 'vandalised'. Here's a few funny ones:

FEMINISM
Original: “Feminism” is a diverse collection of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies, largely motivated by or concerning the experiences of women, especially in terms of their social, political, and economic situation.
Vandalized: Aren’t women asking for too much? Sure, we give them their liberties and stuff, but why must we men give them all our possessions when they ask for a divorce?

BARBRA STREISAND
Original: She briefly dated Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in the early 1970s, had long-term relationships with hairdresser-turned-producer Jon Peters and tennis player Andre Agassi, and later married actor James Brolin in 1998.
Vandalized: She briefly dated Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in the early 1970s, had long-term relationships with hairdresser-turned-producer Jon Peters and tennis player Andre Agassi, and later married actor James Brolin in 1998, with whom she has vigorous anal sex.

RICHARD GERE
Original filmography:
“Beyond the Limit” (1983)
“The Cotton Club” (1984)
“King David” (1985)
“Power” (1986)
“Pretty Woman” (1990)
“Rhapsody in August” (1991)
“Final Analysis” (1992) (also executive producer)
“Sommersby” (1993) (also executive producer)
“Red Corner” (1997)
“The Jackal” (1997)
“Junket Whore” (1998) (documentary)
“Runaway Bride” (1999)

Vandalized filmography:
“Beyond the Limit” (1983)
“The Cotton Club” (1984)
“The Gerbil Stuffing Club” (1984)
“King David” (1985)
“Power” (1986)
“Pretty Woman” (1990)
“Rhapsody in August” (1991)
“Rodent in Rectum” (1991)
“Final Analysis” (1992) (also executive producer)
“Sommersby” (1993) (also executive producer)
“Red Corner” (1997)
“The Jackal” (1997)
“The Gerbil” (1997)
“Junket Whore” (1998) (documentary)
“Runaway Bride” (1999)

JESUS
Original: Jesus is the son of God.
Vandalized: Jesus is the son of God. Oh yeah i forgot to tell u that god is an arse and takes it up the batty so does jesus and moses is black and has a huge cock.

Why fashion is smashing
(or, how I learned to embrace my inner six pack).
My Mum just got a call from H&M asking her to be the 'face' of their new campaign! Imagine that! My Mum! Apparently every single model H&M deliberated over had, at one time or another, sniffed some coke (offered by their clients PR team) so they were rejected.
What a fucking sham this whole Moss thing is. I don't feel sorry for the skinny bitch (she needs to take more care when she imbibes) but I do know that if everyone in that industry who (oh God, I sound like a hippy now) does drugs were fired tomorrow then they'd be left with a core of about ten elderly spinsters looking after a multi billion dollar enterprise. Fact: beautiful people in fashion take drugs. Fact: the not-so-beautiful people who look after the beautiful people in fashion take drugs. Fact: Sharon, LaTrina and gay Steven from the council estates of the UK won't take drugs just because Kate Moss did. They will take them because they know it feels fucking great and, just for one night, they are convinced that Jefferson Hack will find them and fuck them silly.

Like my new coat?

Earlier this year in LA (Newport actually) we spent a day at OCMA. The show we saw was 'Beautiful Losers' and the artist that stood out for me was Mike Mills. He was showing various video projects including some footage from his feature film Thumbsucker. Well, at last it has a release date (USA only so far) and it performed very well in Edinburgh and Berlin so fingers crossed for a European release. The Thumbsucker blog is here and everything else is here (a beautiful site).

Some mildly amusing stuff as a I take a break from boring my 7 readers with holiday snaps.

This morning while riding my bicycle to work down infamous Noel Road in N1 I saw a man kiss another man (and I don't mean one of those entertainment biz air-kisses). One of the men was the presenter of a quasi-religious TV show on Sunday mornings (tin-bath faced Alice Beer is his co-presenter). He wore camouflage pants (how 1995) and had a nice scruffy dog.

This site features pictures of dogs in bee costumes.

A man went around NYC placing empty speech bubble stickers on posters. He then re-visited the posters and photographed what folk had written in the bubbles. Here are the pics broken down into categories.

I've snaffled some stonking tunes from Fat Planet over the past few months and I highly recommend their selections (who knew ragga-core could be so pleasant?). Fat Planet, along with Fluxblog, are the best bargains on the web for open minded listeners (i.e. the tunes are free).

Mariah carey watches Eastenders (one of the 87 viewers left viewing this car crash of a TV show) and now she's looking for a home near Old Street. That sound you can hear is the final nail being driven into the coffin of 'trendy' Shoreditch. New Orleans style funeral expected to take place in up and coming (i.e. shit hole) Dalston next week.

This is a nice tool.

Pass the sick bag

This monstrosity is called Euromir and is naturally located in the Russian section of the park. It is a Mack designed ride but I'm not surprised that this remains the only one built. The first portion of the ride involves a unique revolving lift-hill inside one of the glass towers (a bit like an Archimedes screw) followed by some wild-mouse tight cornering 100ft off the ground. The cars then plunge down that huge banked curve and into a set of even tighter helix's before re-entering the station. The problem with the ride for me (and I know I'm a lone voice on this as Euromir seems to have millions of devoted fans) is the revolving cars. They spin at various points of the ride and I spent most of my trip facing backwards not having a clue about where I was heading. 30 seconds more on that thing and I would have chucked my lunch on the heads of those waiting to ride below. God knows why I rode it again after the same thing happened three years ago.
It is a mesmerising ride to watch (from terra firma) and the Russian nose-bleed techno blaring inside the glass towers sorta suited the ambience.

The tallest in Europe

Silver Star is the tallest rollercoaster in Europe. A title once held by the Big One in Blackpool. SS may be the tallest in Europe but it's not the best. It's very fast, smooth and comfortable but a bit dull (I do realise that I'm pushing the boundaries of 'dull' when I use that word to describe plummeting 240ft at 90mph). GeForce at Holiday Park (100 miles north of Europa Park) gets our vote as the best steel rollercoaster in Europe. Still, Silver Star is better than the Big One (a one trick pony in my book) and during our visit last week it was always a walk-on (i.e. no queue) so we weren't complaining.

The final plop

Shelley Winters would love this

The Mack family own Europa Park. They are a famous dynasty of fairground showmen and ride designers. This ride is called Poseidon and it's one of only a few water-coasters in the world. The smooth banked curves and steep drops are lovely to experience but the uber-steep final bunny-hop into the blue waters is breathtaking. The themeing on this ride is practically perfect (including walking under a full size Trojan horse in the queue area). We sat on benches after riding it watching the flow of thrilled riders heading from the exit to the entrance to do it all again. Excellent pics here.

Thank you to Nigel for pointing out that Spellcnut was mentioned in an article on gay bloggers in qx magazine. It was nice to be recognised in the company of Joe and Jocko. Here is the piece in pdf format (find me at the end under 'other suggested blogs' ).

Deliverance

Naturally we liked the 'Deliverance' section of the park. Unfortunately there was no sign of Burt Reynolds but we did spy a tube of anal-ease lube on the hillbilly's raft.

As a mark of respect...

...this New Orleans river boat was decommisioned during our visit. The water rides that were based around the huge lake were very un-pc. The jungle cruise included lots of animatronic 'sambo's' scooting up ropes to escape alligators and cooking explorers in huge pots. We saw no non-white folk during our three days there which was very spooky.

Our room.

I simply can't think of a suitable ass/donkey anecdote for this pic.

Colosseo courtyard at night.

Themeing on a par with Disney

The Hotel Colosseo is new. It joins the other two hotels at Europa Park (their themes: Spain and the middle ages(!)). The hotel is built around a huge courtyard which contains restaurants, bars, a spa and dancing fountains. At the opposite end of the hotel is a full size replica of part of the original Colosseum (the part where the poor would sit and watch the lions rip the heads off the christians). We were initially given a poky room above the hotel entrance (complete with comings-and-goings noise) but after a quick word with the hotel manager we were moved to a huge room with a view of the Italian gardens below (as well as the car park). There was a bust of Hermes (the God of scarves) outside our room.

Brave children only

Look at those slides! This tower was in the childrens section of Europa Park. Those death-defying steep slides scared the pants off me and I was just sitting near them, chewing on a toffee apple, waiting to see the five year old corpses pop out at the bottom. They never did though, the little buggers shot out at the bottom squealing and laughing and then ran back up the stairs to do it all again!

Men in metal skirts

The gladiator show at Europa Park featured porn stars with huge legs beating the crap out of each other on horseback. We loved it (even though all the grunting was in German). They had a little mascot gladiator (a small man not a midget) who was quite camp and did a funny little dance to Queens clappy anthem ‘We Will Rock You’. This made us smile.

It's the little things...

...that make a theme park special. Details like these carved trees in a little forest near the exit of the Alpine Fahrt (stop sniggering) make all the difference to a pair of geeks like us.
Fahrt means 'trip' or 'ride' and makes us laugh like the immature schoolboys we think we are.

I love to swim before breakfast

The heated pool at The Hotel Colosseo was beautiful and was steaming in the chilly dawn air when I arrived. The pool extends inside the building and by swimming under one of those arches I found myself in a recreation of the ancient Roman baths (though I was disappointed there was no orgy). I had the place to myself for an hour and it was bliss.

Morgen! Back from mittel Europe safe and well and still gobsmacked at how Germany and Switzerland can run their countries (and especially their trains) to such strict and exacting timetables. Even Easyjet were scared into arriving on-time both ways.
Basel was a good-looking city and we spent Saturday bimbling along its cobbled streets avoiding marathon runners and trying not to stare at their tiny running shorts. We saw churches and bridges and swollen rivers and street golfers and street fashion shows and street art and lots of really tall and beefy handsome Swiss men (must be the chocolate).
Our hotel was mighty grand (the kind with slippers and robes in the bathroom and such a bargain on Expedia) and just opposite the train station, which was very handy for the next morning when we started our trip into Germany and the Black Forest.
The Heimat scenery kept us amused for two hours and was made even more dramatic by dark clouds and belting rain (yet, naturally, the local bus kept to it’s schedule and met our train at Ringsheim) and ten minutes later we were checking in at our theme park hotel.
The next three days were spent riding boats, trains, rollercoasters, bobsleighs, monorails, runaway mine-cars, paddle-steamers, revolving viewing platforms, waterslides and log flumes. We ate delicious food from Italy, Spain and France but not Switzerland (do you know how disgusting raclette smells?) and we sat in beautiful gardens admiring German green fingers.

Remember when Madonnas 'American Life' was leaked onto the internet a few years ago so she recorded that "what the fuck do you think you're doing?" message which replaced the song whenever someone tried to download it? Well, today on Popjustice, I learned that the first single from the new album has leaked out again (she is very careless isn't she). The following paragraph made me laugh out loud:

Be sure to download it, because then the Equestrian Girl will have to record another one of those hilarious "This is Madge, what the fuck do you think you're doing?" messages, perhaps something more topical along the lines of "This is Madonna, how the fuck do you get a horse to slow down? Whhooooaaggaghh!!" to the sound of coconut shells clopping into the distance followed by a scream and a small thump.

Right, last day at work until next Wednesday. Off to Basel in Switzerland tomorrow morning (crack of dawn so early night tonight). Our flight lands in Mullhouse in France so by Tuesday night we will have visited France, Switzerland and Germany. We have Saturday in Basel then on Sunday morning we take one of those sexy German trains from Basel to Europa Park for three nights at this new hotel. Europa Park is enormous, highly themed (the themes being European Countries), beautifully maintained with gorgeous gardens and full of unique one-of-a-kind rides. Look at this view of a river flowing through 'France'. Or how about this burning shed on the banks of a fjord in 'Finland'. One of our favourite spots is 'Spain' and this is a lovely night time view. And who wouldn't want to zoom into the bowels of a burning disused mine in 'Austria' on an out-of-control runaway train? We would.

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That's about right.

New Orleans residents and famous 1st wave bloggers Jonno and Sturtle are ok. Sturtle has made some great posts since August 31st. Go see them for some personal insight.

Mike pointed me to this and it's a scary but brilliant piece of writing. Just like they were remaking 'Escape From New York' or 'Mad Max'.

Moan moan moan
I'm probably in the minority about this but I have to say that I'm sick of the summer. I'm sick of sweating on my bicycle, I'm sick of sleeping poorly because of evening heat, I'm sick of the lawn growing fast and needing to mow it, I'm sick of midges and other flying and biting creatures, I'm sick of having a luke warm bath before bed, I'm sick of sun glare in my eyes as I ride home and I'm sick of white gypsy skirts and flip-flops (for crying out loud girls (and tacky gayers), cover up those ugly-ass feet).

Dreaming......


Yes, I know that the above moan is quite pathetic in the wider scheme of things but the heat makes me cranky.

UPDATE: watch all Mercury performances including Antony's show stealer.

Congratulatiuons to Antony And The Johnsons. Splendid news which really cheered me up this morning. When asked what he will do with the Mercury cheque he said "probably get some new clothes, I look a bit rough". I missed the Mercury show on TV but apparently Antony sang 'Hope there's Someone' which silenced the boozy audience and left them in rapture. Justice.

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Gay cat has fur dyed in honour of Quinton Crisps birthday but owners think aliens did it.

The village pimp in rural Essex.

Lovely weekend in Blackpool (even though Mum and Dad were there). Got very drunk in their presence on Saturday night at a local trattoria, blamed Dad for my cross-dressing lifestyle and then fell asleep on the couch with tiramisu all over my face. Splendid. Edward has gone off to stay with my parents for a couple of weeks as Darren and I are off to Germany to ride gigantic German rollercoasters like this one this weekend.

Mum gets her first front cover.

Gone to Blackpool for the weekend.

I reckon the Tories are onto something this time:
Ken Clarke - beer, ciggies and a slap-up dinner.
Gordon Brown - 40 watt bulb, put a jumper on NOT the heating, boiled potato and ham dinner.

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Apologies in advance but you gotta have a sense of humour (as many of the homeless have bravely testified in their TV interviews).

There is, a house, in New Orleans
They caaaaaaaaall the rising damp

I'm sick of folk calling the New Orleans disaster "our tsunami" when actually, they had two weeks warning about the storms and possible floods, but many people decided to hide in their attics (or, stupidly, their basements) rather than leave town. And don't give me that no car crap. Walking would have got anyone away from the disaster even in the 24 hours before it hit. Maybe now 'they' will listen to the global warming debates and do something about their enormous contribution to this problem.


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Overheard at work today.
"I spent yesterday at Brockwell lido and after a day amongst so many young British males and females at leisure I came to the inescapable conclusion that we need a war. And the bigger the better."
"I know, modern living standards and health-care have killed the whole survival of the fittest thing. There's millions of cnuts who simply shouldn't be alive."

This shoe is £90 at Oki-Ni but just last week I bought a clone of it from Shoeworld in Blackpool for £9.99. This bike is £414 at Oki-Ni but a few years ago I bought a very similar one from K Mart in Fort Lauderdale for $99 and gave it away on the last day of my holiday. This jacket is £165 at Oki-Ni but last summer I bought a much better looking version (classic tan with red tartan lining, as worn by Thierry in that car ad set in Las Vegas) for £20 at my local army surplus shop. This pink t-shirt is £40 at Oki-Ni but I've seen the same thing in packs of three at Marks and Spencers for a tenner.
I'm feeling my age now because I scoffed loudly after reading the following paragraph on the Oki-Ni website:

Our aim is to break from many of the long-standing traditions and conventions of the fashion and design industry. We have dedicated production facilities which ensures that all our designs are produced in strictly limited numbers to maintain rarity and uniquness. We also avoid the concept of 'seasons' by constantly developing designs and introducing new products on a monthly basis.

Good innit! Fashion eh, Gotta love it. I found absolutely nothing on their website that was unique and I'd hardly call a run of 5000 sweatshirts as 'rare'. I found a sweatshirt in Millets last week just like this one and it was £8 not £85. I bought it and felt-tipped a squiggly design on it and then dragged it down Shoreditch High Street behind my one-of-a-kind space hopper till it was uniquely distressed and then I sold it as my Niki-Noki exclusive/extraordinary/irreplaceable knitwear collection.
*dashes off to mens room to start work on Spring 2006 collection of 'distressed' undergarments*