#bridgetbythebridge

#scarlettwoman

 

 

I like the colour red. Actually I love the colour red. I love red things, crimson things, scarlet things (even letters) and I really, really love to wear red. Red makes me happy, it is a flaming reflection of me, bright, angry, passionate, in your fucking face and hot. #ofcourseimeantemperaturehot

But what never ceases to dazzle me is the number of people who comment on it. It happens almost every day. FFS I’m wearing red; I’m not naked, I’m not wearing a latex unitard, I’m not daubed in tangerine tan, I am most definitely not wearing anything with the shoulders cut out of it, I’m not wearing religious attire, I am not wearing my underwear outdoors, I just choose to wear red.

Wearing red in London, or previously in Paris, is so conspicuously unique as to be remarkable, as in, people vocally, loudly remark upon it. In the lift at work, in the dentist waiting room, as I leave my apartment to go to work and most remarkably, two weeks ago, on the tube.

I’ll come back to the tube incident, but the lift comments always amaze me.

 

The First time I saw this I was a teenager...

I've wanted one ever since.

 

 

“Wow, look at you! Always so colour coordinated!”

“It is so funny the way your shoes and your phone match your outfit”

“Here she is, the lady in red”* 

It isn’t funny that everything matches; it is not a fortunate accident, nor is it a coincidence. I do it on purpose!

 

You may have read an article about Obama’s suits, or about Steve Jobs’ polo neck t-shirts, or about Diane Keaton’s pantsuits. It is not by chance that these people wear the same 5 items of clothing every day. They do it so they don’t have to think about what they are going to wear, one less decision to fret about in an increasingly busy life, saving all too precious time in an all too busy day. And lets be frank, unless you are a fashion model, or an extra in The Devil Wears Prada, when you dress for work, who is giving an actual f**k about the minutiae of your outfit?

Bred as I was in an Anglican Private Day School for Boys and Girls^, I wore the same thing every single day for 8 years; a navy wool skirt, a navy wool jacket, a navy silk tie and a lemon cotton blouse. A uniform provides safety, security and reliability and it saves about 8 hours a week otherwise spent deciding whether to wear the brown one or the coffee one or the fawn one or the chestnut one or… I would also contend that the majority of men waste but a nanosecond of their early mornings determining the combination of armour with which they intend to cover themselves before attacking another day behind a desk. I am sat down, I’m on a mobile phone or I’m typing emails; no actually gives a toss what I am wearing…oh but they do!

There is another reason the Famouses wear the same thing every day, it’s their brand, it’s their marker, it’s their calling card. They do it so they are easily recognisable; they do it to be unique. They do it because their bob and big sunglasses (Anna Wintour), their gloves and stiff white collars (Karl Lagerfeld) or their tan and just-a-little-bit-too-undone shirt (Simon Cowell) are harbingers of their specific personal avatar. Like the Spice Girls, or Voltron, or the characters in Cluedo; everyone has their colour, everyone has their specific toon and everyone shoulders their unique carapace.

In my case, in the grand tradition of the most fashionable of fashion designers, Valentino, I chose red.

 

 

Signor Valentino

 

I chose red because it goes with my skin. I wasn’t permitted to wear pink when I was a small person. Motherbear wasn’t hot on dressing her little red-faced girl in a cloud of pink flounces; she said it clashed. I was always the blue while the Art-sist-ologer and her olive-er skin got the pink. I have blotchy red skin that coordinates perfectly with my red tops, my red dresses and my red jeans. I chose red because it matched.  

I chose red because it’s the proverbial “red rag”. When I approach, flaming, spitting and stalking, the bulls (read the bullIES) scarper. It’s less of an effort to argue with someone who’s running away. It’s easier to blindside someone who is blind. It’s easier to win if they are already on their back foot.

I chose red because I live in Europe. When the sun is so bright it burns away your retinas, colour is not so much a choice as requisite. Neon rashies, white hats, white clothes in general, all of it protects against the harsh light of a Sydney day. Here in Europe, everyone wears grey. Their coats are woven from grey wool to protect against the grey rain that falls from a grey sky upon their grey souls. Motherbear did once comment as I left the house wearing a Fuchsia wool coat and red Dr Marten boots; you must really stand out in London, looking the way you do, compared to the rest of them. She’s right, I do. 

As the minions march across London Bridge, their grey coats wafting in the wind, me and my brights are bouncing. As the pointy-shoed, tight-trousered dudes saunter into their offices, ready to make a mockery of one and t’other, I stomp in sneakers with purpose and punch. As the little ladies twitter in Topshop, and totter on tiptoe, I revel in rouge, ready to rage for another day, another day at war, but at war in comfort.

So about that girl in the tube.

The sparkle that started it all.. #rubyredslippers

 

She was about 20, she had mermaid multicoloured hair. She was wearing ironic acid-wash jeans and an ironic rock T-shirt of a band she wouldn’t have been old enough to have ever seen live. She looked cool AF and if I noticed her during the 4 stops we shared a pole, it was because she really did look that awesome. I wanted to look like she did’ footloose and fancy-free. I wished I didn’t have to wear boring work clothes so I could look like her, like myself.

And then...as I jumped the stairs two at a time, earning a few extra heartbeats in a heartlessly boring day, she popped up beside me and said, “is red your favourite colour?” Somewhat taken aback that an actual human being with all their sandwiches in their proverbial picnic had spoken to me in London’s Underground Labyrinth, I wavered, “Yeah, yeah it is”. “Well you look so cool, you really do!” she burst out.

She proffered no clichéd reference to an 80’s song by Chris de Burgh, no sly giggle, no malice, no mirth, just genuine appreciation of another someone dancing to their own tune.

And that, dear reader is why I always wear red. I wear red because it’s me; it isn’t you, it isn’t them, its me… and there’s no syrupy 80’s ballad for it.

 

 

 

*I do love that people always offer Lady in Red, never Scarlett O’Hara, Ruby Tuesday or Red Red Wine, or anything else really

^That is what the website says #rollsoffthetongue

#hotornot

 

Something pretty horrible happened over the past month. Two men, men that I had adored since I was a giggling schoolgirl, men who shaped my blossoming adolescent sexuality, men that had very, very sexy voices, men that had very, very dodgy teeth, English men, two brilliantly sexy men, died.

 

David Bowie, matinee idol he was not; he had two different coloured eyes, he had a squinty glare, he was tall, he was reed thin, not especially well toned, he was pale and pasty, and dear god, when he smiled. When he smiled he revealed two rows of gnashers that could make a hippo envious. David Bowie was not pretty, he was not especially handsome, he was certainly not the epitome of masculine beauty; David Bowie was hot. 

The Thin White Duke flashed across my early morning TV screen bopping around like a bit of a loony, he wore very odd outfits and sang songs about things I didn’t really understand. Motherbear was a bit of a fan. She would play his songs very, very loudly while she cleaned the house on the weekends, usually when Dad was out. She’d remind us that ‘he wasn’t acting’ in the video for China Girl. She watched his movies, even the really weird ones, and had us watch them too. I still don’t really know what Absolute Beginners was about, but the image of his head poking up from the hot sand in Merry Christmas My Lawrence has been etched on my memory ever since I saw it, a film so dreadfully potent, I’ve only watched it the once.*

In 1986 I was ten. In 1986, we went on a family holiday to a Caravan Park north of Sydney. In 1986, Motherbear strapped her brood in the car and sat them down in front of a silver screen. In 1986, I saw Labyrinth for the first time. In 1986, I started to understand what romantic love was, what made men love girls and girls love men. David Bowie was wearing a leather coat and snakeskin leggings and a spiky wig and I was hooked. David Bowie was hot.

 

Last month we also said our long goodbye to Alan Rickman. He was the serpentine Severus Snape, he was the shambolic Sheriff of Nottingham, he was a lofty Louis XIV, he was that horny husband Harry in Love Actually, he was the caring, considerate, compassionate Colonel Brandon; he was a thousand faces, but to me, most memorably, always, he was a voice. #seewhatididthere 

Alan Rickman had a very distinct voice; a voice so unique that his peers and fellow thespians made sport of mimicking him. He made sport of it too. Everyone wanted to have that voice. He wasn’t a box-office smashing Pitt-ly leading man; he rarely played a dashing, romantic character. Often remembered as Hans Gruber, and subsequently typecast by the Americans, he was the villain, the bad guy, and the malevolent adulterous husband. #bothsidesnow

Let me tell you loudly, on behalf of my fellow ovary pouches, just in case you testosterone tasers weren’t yet aware, Alan Rickman had a very hot voice. His voice was like the sensation of liquid chocolate sauce being poured over warm popcorn. His voice was syrup, sweet, bass and salty, and that hedonistic hum made him hot. His voice, even when he was invoking evil and adultery, was seduction with sense. He was clever, he was political, he could act and quote Shakespeare, and Alan Rickman was hot.

  

David Bowie and Alan Rickman; two hot men, both of whom were 69, both of whom succumbed to cancer, both of whom fuelled many a teenage/adult woman damp pants fantasy. And when I shared this fact with some of my immediate entourage, I was subject to quizzical glances, questioning stares and puzzled censure. Neither of these genii were heartthrobs, neither made the Hemsworth-Depp-Pitt cover of People’s Sexiest Men, neither were pinups, but they were hot. The ladies (and the gays) didn’t agree. 

The discussion with the girls moved from criticism to conjecture as we each shared our weird, #hotornot crushes. Right Wing Politicians, Pervy Professors, Sexually Ambivalent Colleagues, people who were too old, people who were far too young and everything in between. A fully-grown man dressed in lycra as a Goblin King seems quite tame compared to someone who fancies a Wookie. #letthewookiewin

Zac Efron, Adonis of the perfect abdomen, is currently wallpapered across every second London Bus promoting Dirty Grandpa. I asked a colleague if she had seen said poster of almost naked Efron-pollo and her response surprised me. “I’m not that into him, he is just too perfect”.

  

So here it is. Everyone and anyone are into the pretty ones, the tall ones, the short ones, the old ones and the young ones. There is no perfect. There is no ideal. This is scientifically proven; we go for the ones we have the greatest propensity to mate with, always searching for the perfect genetic cocktail to win the race. Perhaps, like me, you prefer the ones with English teeth, lascivious voices and a penchant for close-fitting ballet tights.

 

 

 

 

*This may in fact be symptomatic of the subject matter, World War II. Schindler’s List, Paradise Road and Private Ryan, too traumatic for me, only watched them once.

#bridgetandbear

 

Or, “Jiu Jitsu; a Most Unexpected Romance”.

 

Anyone who’s read anything I’ve ever written here or at parismarisamadonna will by now have gleaned a couple of core facts about me,#bridgetbythebridge. 

You’ll know that I work really, really hard, all of the time, earning all the money that keeps me (and a couple of others) fed, watered, clothed and regularly flying south to visit the little people. You will know that work, and being excellent at it, has been the unique focus of my life since forever, that my entire sense of self-worth hinges on how well I am doing in my job, how much my boss values me and whether or not I’m getting a promotion. You’ll know that my job is my life.

You will also know that I am more than just a little bit opinionated. I’ve got something to say about pretty much everything and I don’t mind how loudly or how aggressively I say it.  You’ll know that when I’m ‘off on one’ I use big words I look up on the online thesaurus almost as often as I swear like a sailor; I fuck and shit and piss and c*nt as easily as I pontificate, iterate and capitulate. I love to use all the words, I love to emote and express, I love that when I write, you can hear and see me stubbornly stomping, proudly punching the air or bellowing with belly laughs.

You’ll know that I’ve hated the way I look for as long as I’ve been conscious of my own appearance. You’ll know that I go red in the face when I do sport. You’ll know that I drink too much wine and sometimes forget how I got home. You’ll know about my anxiety and you’ll know about the dead father, the loving mother, the Smartarse brother, the artistic sister and the imaginary mister. You’ll know that I love my family more than makes sense for a woman of my age and that I love to travel, to discover the people of the world and eat all the food in the fanciest of restaurants.

You’ll know that I love bonnet dramas and Bronte and Austen; I love Downton and Dancing. I am the typical middle-aged workingwoman with no cats but all the gay friends, cheering me on, toasting and roasting and boasting. You’ll know that I am more than a little obsessed with Tom Hiddleston,#poshtotty and you’ll know that I am unfailingly optimistic, even a little naïve. But you’ll most especially know, you’ll be certain of it, you know that I am a hopeless romantic.

Which is why this story is so unexpected.

I thought I’d find my romance in the theatre, or in a dimly lit wine bar, or at work. I thought that like Lizzie or Bridget, my romance would be a battle of wits, eyes meeting over a robust bottle of Pinot, hands finding each other under the table, a romantic comedy starring Colin Firth, someone who liked me very much, just as I am. ^

 

 

Well someone did tell me they liked me very much, just as I am (specifically that I am at my best when I'm not fake or covered, just myself). Someone’s eyes did meet mine, but over the cold steel rods of a dumbbell. The battle of wits took place three times a week, very early in the morning, in a flood lit gym studio, with mirrors on the walls that I never look into. It is about as romantic as a visit to the gynaecologist. While many of you slept soundly in your beds, we were exchanging increasingly suggestive innuendo as I gritted my teeth in agony, sweating, panting, and complaining that I couldn’t do it. But I always did do it; he was always standing beside me, lifting me off the floor when I collapsed, reminding me of my own strength, a supportive hand on my shoulder, a high-five for each milestone I surpassed, or my favourite, a cheeky spank when I don't lift my hips high enough off the ground during push ups.

I have seduced a man who has never seen me with makeup on. I’ve seduced a man who has never seen me with non-swooshed daytime clothes on. I’ve seduced a man who has seen my face so red he wondered if my eyeballs would bleed. I’ve seduced a man who has seen me cry at my own weakness, who has seen me wretch in exhaustion, who has seen me quake and quiver, strain and stretch, sweat and stink, grunt and groan, wobble and wail.*

Who would ever have thought that I, the bolshie, intellectual, fancy, wine-bar type would find my romantic comedy in a fluorescent fucking gym. Who would ever have expected that a man who shouts at me, a man who forces me to do things I do not want to do, would be the object of my affection? Who would have predicted that the only man to whom I have ever listened, a man who gives me orders, who would have predicted that that man would be the one that makes my knees weak? Who would have believed that a man who observes me as I do actual physical exercise would ever find me attractive?

He lets me hit him with my bare fists. He lets me throw my entire weight against him and push him off balance. And a few weeks back he taught me Jiu Jitsu; the ancient Japanese art of grappling ones opponent, rolling around on the ground until one person pins the other one to the floor. I have bruises all over my arms, but most pleasingly, I have bruises on my lips. He lets me overpower him, he lets me throw him down and then one day, after I’d panted through an hour fighting him, he let me kiss him. #notsurethatispartofjiujitsu

He is the leading man of my very own romantic (martial arts themed) comedy. #bridgetandbear

 

[He read this before I published it, and has approved, although he wishes he wasn't named after Bear Grylls, which is ironic, because he is leading a mountain climbing expedition in Scotland as we speak. Today is his Birthday, and this was my gift to him.]

 

^That’s a quote from Bridget Jones for the uninitiated

*Seduced; a word I’ve used for poetic purpose rather than an exact description of any intentional intoxication

 

 

Also, but unrelated, please click here and LIKE the Art-sist-ologer, black one with white flowers, so she can win the universe of textile design and I can retire. 

 

 

#imjustagirl

 

Emily Wilding Davison who died under the King's horse at Epsom Derby

 

My personal trainer, the ever-smiling Bear, that brave man who has transformed me into a slightly wobblier less pornographic version of Ronda Rousey, (my latest girlcrush and I want to be her), has one very annoying habit; he is a bit of a sexist. He is kind, he is wholly supportive of my efforts, he is very careful when we fight because he knows I’m easily frightened (a hangover from a lively childhood spent dodging fists and flying objects) but from time to time he’ll tell me I can’t be trusted because I’m female, and females lie.^

We’ve talked about it, I know why he thinks this (he too has a less than Hallmark personal history), he knows I disagree, and if I’m wearing my gloves, I’ll happily jab-cross him in the belly to make my point. #idontliebutiwillhit Women don’t, as a habit, want to lie; but we are usually required to hide how we really feel, to pretend, to make-believe and to act. We do this not from a place of malicious anti-bloke deception, we do this because we fucking well have to.

Surviving in a world owned by, legislated by, ruled by and swarming with men is really fucking hard. Despite the moderate advances of women’s rights, a shitload of shit still has not changed. #thatwassurprisinglysweary

 

JLAW - a god damn fucking revelation

 

Have you heard of Jennifer Lawrence? If you haven’t, you’ve spent ten years residing under a vacuum-sealed rock. You may know her as Katniss Everdeen, the hero of one of the most commercially successful film franchises since Star Wars. You might also know her as Mystique, the slinky blue nemesis of the X-Men films; those nice little earners that made 20^th Century Fox (and the arsehole who owns it) Four Hundred Million Dollars. Perhaps you heard of her because of all those sparkly golden statues she keeps getting nominated for, and winning. Or maybe, because she’s just a girl, you heard of her because she was dating Chris Martin, or because she has a modelling contract with Dior, or because she tripped in her heels, or because her naked selfies were stolen from her personal telephone and shared all over the cum-splashed pervy corners of the internet? 

Well now you can know about her because she wrote this*. Not only is she among the best actresses of her generation. Not only is she the embodiment of the BFF I want to have. Not only is she brutally honest, funny and clever. She can also write like I wish I could… and get a point across… and maybe just start a fucking revolution. #theswearingiscomingfromsomewhereverydark

  

JLaw makes a point that has kept me awake since I read it, “all I hear and see all day are men speaking their opinions, and I give mine in the same exact manner, and you would have thought I had said something offensive.” Why are we so worried about being precious, or prim, or narky, or bitchy, or sassy, or anything at-fucking-all, when the dudes are quite happy to go first class postal without any concern for the consequences.

I’ve come to the conclusion that whether we lie, whether we tell the truth, whether we’re dressed in heels, boots or sneakers, ultimately it is the vagination of anything I might say that offends. Most men are pretty fabulous, most men are kind and open and generous and loving and fair most of the time. But on the day when decisions are made, on the day when resources are rationed, on the day when arguments are fought and lost; the men are thinking only about winning their fight, they are not thinking about whether their lipstick is smudged, or whether they come over catty, or whether they will still be respected if they disagree with the rest of the room.  

Which is why Suffragette made me so sad.

Carey Mulligan - entirely amazing in almost everything

 

Go and see this movie. Make everyone you know go and see this movie. Once you’ve all seen it, sit together, have a drink and talk about what it all means. 

Almost a hundred years ago, women took to terrorism to get the attention of the men who wouldn’t let them vote. They became rebels, they blew shit up, they screamed and shouted, they made a whole lot of noise and even sacrificed their own lives to force those in power to amend their patriarchal rule.

I’ve voted as long as I’ve been legally able to. I’ve had my own bank account. I’ve walked alone. I’ve signed my own contracts. I’ve purchased (and drunk) my own litre of vodka. I’ve bought all the shit I’ve wanted to buy, by myself. But I worry every single day about whether I’m being harpish, bitchy, negative or emotional. I worry about crying in public, I worry what the people around me think of me, I worry if Bear thinks I’m lying. Every time I ask someone I work with to do something, I worry about being perceived as a moaning preachy cow. But the boys don’t. #andtheygettopeestandingup

  

Did you know that ‘bullish’ is a positive word? Did you know that being bullish is actually a good thing? Did you know that being called a cow (the girl version of a bull) is more insulting than being called a cunt? Did you know that a cunt is a vagina and one man calling another man cunt is more insulting than cock? Did you know that hysteria (being nuts, crazy, unreliable, etc) comes from the Greek word for uterus? Did you know that the language we have to describe what is happening, how we feel and what we want to do was written by and designed for a whole bunch of people with penises and I wish I had a word for how that makes me angry that in no way had it’s etymological roots in my womanliness?

Well now you do.

 

 

^We’ve had a separate conversation about why I should be called a woman rather than a female; one is scientific and one is complimentary 

*I subscribe to LENNY so I can read the full version. You should too.

 

 

 

 

#theplaysthething

 

 

Bradley Cooper is a very fine specimen of the human male, he has blue eyes evoking a million Instagram photos of your mates on beach holidays in Ibiza, his wavy, honey coloured hair has that magical ability to flop seductively over one side of his face, forcing him to raise one of his impeccably defined arms and push it back behind his ear. His body, now that I’ve seen it in real life, is a thing of magic, bronzed god-like, perhaps better placed on a plinth in the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence if David ever gets tired of being gawked at by middle-aged American* women. But my latest, somewhat surprising discovery is that Bradley Cooper is a truly exceptional actor. #manisgorgeousandtalented #luckybastard

I’ve seen more plays in the last 12 months than I have in my entire life, more about that soon, but this past week was the first time I’ve been moved to tears, thrice, before the final curtain. And I wasn’t weeping at Bradley’s superhuman, deific physical perfection...seriously, I think that warts and pimples are mystically repelled from his skin fearing the stain they might inflict on the only living example of masculine, human perfection. Am I gushing…he really was that good?

James as God..I'm convinced

  

When I moved to London 15 month past, I quickly formed an unlikely friendship with a former colleague from the Fruit Company. Unlikely, only because I’d vowed to cut all non-actual-pieces-of-fruit from the realm of my life. The Critique was a woman I’d seen about the office when I visited London, but never said more than about 10 words to. Full credit for our new bond sits in the palm of Pinterest; sharing pictures of Benedict Cumberbatch is the solidest of foundations of any long-term friendship, based on a mutual appreciation of Posh Totty.^

Posh Totty and Theatre.

That’s Theatre pronounced, thair-ah-tair.

 

Bradley becomes the world's sexiest Elephant

 

Just this year, we’ve seen Chiwetel Ejifor snort a 10-foot line of coke off a 10-foot long table, Ralph Fiennes dance with an Andalusian Devil, Stephen Mangan throw a freshly roasted Turkey at his mother and on one sad occasion, when the Critique was stranded in the US, she missed James McAvoy unicycling in his Y-Fronts. As if that wasn’t enough, still to come in 2015, Dame Judi, Robert Sean Leonard (O Captain, My Captain) Kenneth B and the ultimate prize, Benedict himself holding forth the skull of poor Yorick.

But it isn’t just about the Gossip Page Celebrities polishing their acting chops in the hopes of winning an Olivier. (Although I will grant you that I’d have never willingly sat through George Bernard Shaw’s 4-hour marathon of sexist sludge, Man and Superman, if Voldemort hadn’t played the lead role.)  I love the nervous feeling, the anticipation, the visceral experience of sitting in a blackened room and witnessing the action and activity played out by real life people, their spit flying across the stage, their skin glistening with the perspiration of effort and efficacy, their faces Photoshop free, the fact that unlike so much of my politically correct professional life, this shit is real.

It isn’t cut, or spliced, or edited or effected to look it’s pristine best. There is no green screen, no motion capture, no aide off camera shouting out the lines; the people actually act right in front of you. The actors’ voices quiver as they wail, they grunt and groan with the physical exertion and Chiwetel must be losing 3 kilos every night as the ranting and running of poor Everyman sweats through his shirt onto the back of his suit jacket. #mustbethecoke

So why did Bradley make me cry?

 

Rules for Living..or Christmas at our place.

 

Bradley played John Merrick in the Elephant Man, a role made famous in the 1980 film with John Hurt in a role that won him an Oscar nomination and BAFTA award. But John Hurt was covered in prosthetic make-up to create his physical deformities; Bradley’s face was delightfully free of anything God did not give him (phew, crisis averted), rendering his performance an exceptional feat of human physicality. His face was contorted, his body tilted to the side, he walked with a stick and I was completely, utterly convinced that he was deformed. 

Despite the muscular acrobatics, the gurning and the grimacing, he was still able to cry, to laugh and to deliver a performance of emotion and humour of such intensity, that I when I close my eyes, I can still see it. I was weeping as the lights came up at intermission and at the end of 2 hours of perfect playing; I was full tissue-to-the-mascara bawling. The man is a fucking genius.

The only other thing I’ve seen recently that had me howling was Matilda.

 

If you live in Sydney, in about 3 weeks, you have a unique opportunity to see the musical I never wanted to see, but haven’t stopped raving about since Motherbear forced me into the Cambridge Theatre in March. I don’t like kids on stage, even less when they sing and smile in that fake, overbearing-stage-mother fashion that stage-children learn too early. I don’t like kids that dance with jazz hands learned at ‘acting schools’ whose parents plan to retire on their progeny’s earnings.

But I do love Roald Dahl. And I fucking love Tim Minchin.

Revolting Children

  

If you haven’t been to a live show or a play or a concert in the last 6 months, you really should. There are such a variety of things to see wherever you are. Little kids ballet-dancing, older folk singing the standards or sweary stand-up comedy, these professionals put everything into what they do to be judged by regular people’s purses rather than Simon Cowell’s management budget. Live and in colour is real life, not pseudo-reality constructed under the watchful eye of Big Brother. 

And instead of stuffing FOX, or Netflix, or Apple’s pockets, wouldn’t you rather give your money to a real actor?

Most especially one with very fine eyes?

 

 

 

*Yes, I perved too, but felt unnatural ogling a man made of marble. Having said that, David is slightly more reliable than the flesh and blood variety; you know exactly where to find him and he is never late.

^When being beautiful is only half of the equation; employment of multisyllabic words, encyclopaedic knowledge of Shakespeare and pronouncing all 4 letters of the C word without sounding at all vulgar are example elements of the remaining 50% of the attraction.

 

#happilyeverafter

 

So…will your blog this week be about how you manage to reconcile your passion for Disney Princesses or Pretty Woman with your bra-burning, go fuck yourmanself feminist ideals? 

I’ve paraphrased a little but the main ideas are all represented. How can you, you who spends your precious free-time blogging about your hard won right to do this that and the other, how can you be a feminist and worship Disney Princesses? That deafening metallic sound you can hear is not the sound of Cinderella’s wedding bells but rather the clang of a gauntlet being thrown down by my equally feminist-ing sibling, the Art-sist-ologer. 

Can one be feminist and still appreciate (ok, obsessively love) romantic comedies or Disney movies?

I wish I could turn people into ice too..

 

Animated Disney fairytales were once upon a time (all puns intended) the realm of the cheap DVD shelves at your local supermarket; you stuffed one into the trolley before you left hoping that it would shut the kids up for a couple of hours while you finished the cryptic crossword. But it wasn’t always the case. 

Snow White was released in 1937 to overwhelming critical and financial acclaim, due in part to its straddling the inter-war depression, but equally down to the fact that it was a really well-made film. A mixture of fairytale romance, songs, comedy and hand-drawn animation, Snow and her septet of dwarves launched a franchise of highly successful films. Back then there was no DVD, no videotape for your daughter to watch until the carbon frayed and certainly no mini-nylon dress for her to wear down to your local Tesco.

More fairytales would be released; Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella and even Ariel, but the modern age of Disney Fairytales was born with Beauty and the Beast in 1991. Not only did this feature length animation borrow voices from actual Hollywood stars, it was the first animated film to be nominated for an Oscar in the Best Picture category. It would go on to be bested by Silence of the Lambs but this fairytale cartoon was treated like a proper film with proper actors and Celine bloody Dion belting out the soundtrack years before her heart went on and on and on and on and on.

Belle would be quickly replaced as bigger, better, megastar-powered films followed; Jasmine and Robin Williams, Pocahontas and Mel Gibson even Merida and Billy Connolly. But no one was prepared for the aural, visual and blue-sequinned cape-tossing onslaught that spewed forth in Christmas of 2013 when Anna and Elsa first built their snowman. Frozen has gone on to earn more money than any other Disney film and beat Toy Story to the title of highest earning animated feature. That is a lot of feminist mothers taking their daughters to see a cartoon recounting the tale of not one, but two princesses.

Disney Princesses aren’t anti-feminist characters. They never were. There is a little love at first sight and dresses and weddings; but there is also girls triumphing over adversity, girls preferring to read than to dance, girls as warriors and girls running away from oppression in search of personal identity and happiness. The films themselves aren’t going to win over Emma Watson or Angelina, so they have no chance with the Art-sist-ologer, but they aren’t just odes to men saving us from ourselves.

On the other hand, the Disney Stores, with their tiny high heel slippers, their mini magic wands, their pink sequins and fairy stardust, they are a whole different story. A story that is not animated or copied from the pages of Grimm or Andersen, a story that is grimly real and far more damaging than singing along to Part of your World.

When you wander into a Disney store you’ll notice that one side is lined with pastel princesses while the other is stuffed with soldiers and superheroes. Each side of the store marking out the gender divide like X and Y-chromosomes.  Making movies and made-in-china-merchandising isn’t exactly the same thing even if the big men at Disney are cashing cheques from both. My sister hasn’t even seen the movies; she just wishes her 3 year-old would ask to wear mini carpenter’s belts and construction hats with her ball gowns and tulle skirts.

Disney Fairytales, fun and frivolous with a catchy tune and some silly jokes. I’m not expecting to be saved by a Genie, by an Octopus or by a Fairy Godmother…and certainly not by Prince Charming. But I too like a sing-along on a Sunday afternoon while I finish the cryptic.  

 

Look! There's a band!

 

 

Next up, the Cinderella story that took 1990 by storm. Julia Roberts was unknown, her wide smile and ubiquitous hair were but a glint in the eye of her agent. Richard Gere was best known for carrying Debra Winger off into the sunset in his white sailor suit #isthereasexierimage , back when he still had black hair, revealed as Debs snatched his white hat. Pretty Woman transformed Dick G into the silver fox that may or may not have played with gerbils but definitely did cavort with the Dalai Lama and Cindy Crawford and pseudo Buddhism.

Pretty Woman, which culminates with Vivian asking Richard for her very own ‘fairytale’ is in many ways a modern retelling of Walt’s masterpieces. Ironically Disney passed on the original script because they don’t do prostitutes at the Mouse House. Princess Vivian even gets a very fancy red couture princess dress and some serious ruby bling to wear to her ball. In exchange for 3 grand and daily BJs. #nokissingonthemouth

When it was released, I saw pretty woman 8 times at the cinema. There wasn’t Netflix or iTunes or even SKY+ so if you wanted to see a movie more than once, you paid for a ticket and sat in a darkened room. I’ve never before and never since seen a movie that many times at the cinema. What was it about Vivian and Edward that captured my imagination?

Do I wish someone would take me shopping and buy me a whole shop full of clothes? Hell yeah. Have you ever been to H&M in London on a Saturday? I have, and it’s akin to walking through shit-flavoured quicksand with piranhas hanging from your nipples. I would wish for anyone to take me shopping, to have the staff ‘suck-up’ to me rather than gape horrified at my request for assistance. I also wish for the size-6 waist I’d need to fit into Vivian’s Gucci wardrobe. Neither is likely to happen and wishing or dreaming is not getting.

I sit in meetings with colleagues wishing that buckets of cowpoo would fall from the sky each time one of them said they would ‘touchbase’ with me or ‘doubleclick’on my idea. I sit on the tube wishing that the small child resting comfortably on an entire adult seat while I stand would spontaneously vomit on his disinterested mother. I stand in a queue for a Portaloo covered in piss and shizzle wishing that I could pee against a tree. I stare at the blood smeared toilet paper, tears streaming irrationally down my blotchy face wishing I never, ever, ever had to go through the discomfort of another period. I wish that my ankle wasn’t fat and I wish that I could type this as quickly as I can think of things I wish for.

I also wish that men would stop using women’s bodies as weapons in their wars. I wish dickheads could understand that dudes with beards and books in the sky aren’t as important as real life actual people. I wish that Tony Abbott would spontaneously combust. I wish Madonna would release a good song again.

 

 

I have no intentions of signing away my independence and I don’t expect that I’ll ever get something for nothing. I certainly don’t expect that a man is going to whisk me away on a white horse and save me from the painful realities of the London transport network, shaving my legs and writing emails. 

But I would really love that red dress.

#muchadoaboutnothing

 

This past week, I stood, my face moistened by the salty liquor of pink skin suffocated in BB cream, mineralised paint and shimmering dust. I stood, my womanly curves, straightened between the stays of our 21^st century answer to whalebone and linen; elastic control-topped strangulating hose. I stood; my Raphaelite curls immobile, gleaming with glistening something and super-hold something else. I stood, I felt the cool air waft over my humid skin, cool air, emanating from the rhythmic beat of paper waving the still, tepid air suspended in the back passage of London’s National Theatre. I stood, breathing in that cool air, watching that paper beat out the pulse of a strong male hand, the strong male hand of Benedict Cumberbatch. #bridgetmeetbenedict

 

Posh Accoutrements

 

This past week, I had the tremendous fortune of attending the National Theatre Bright Young Things Gala. I say tremendous fortune because it cost me almost as much as a return flight to Sydney. I say tremendous fortune because The Critique offered me the seat, a seat left vacant at the very last of last minutes. I say tremendous fortune because I moved about a room filled with heroes and heroines, even a Hera. Yes, Billie Piper, who brought to life Shakespeare’s nubile dolly-bird in a BBC produced version of Much Ado About Nothing shared her fire-bin ashtray with me.

Cinderella’s preparations for the ball began the weekend before.

A trip to the West End to lay down at the altar of Karolina, Duchess of Depilation, an hour with Maria the Manicurist and an entire afternoon with David of Essex, the Magician behind the mop of non-pubic curls. That same weekend, an entire day was spent sweating, huffing and puffing in the fitting rooms at John Lewis, attempting, in vain, to find something that wasn’t jeans and a T-shirt that might optimise the visual impact of the flesh and bones attached to my cranium. Dresses were donned, shoes were shod and fantastical jewels of polymer and plastic were strung together upon thinnest nylon to adorn the overflowing prow of the good ship Bridget. #muttondressedasspam

Finally, the big day arrived.

Have you ever tried to shove a sleeping bag inside its nylon sheath? Have you ever made homemade pork sausages? Have you ever trussed a Christmas Turkey? Have you ever sewn a strap, and then used a large safety pin to turn the fabric inside of itself? I’m now certain I employed a unique combination of all these skills, and some ancient voodoo, to get myself inside of the Spanx Tights and the fully lined, floor length jersey dress I wore to meet with the most famous cheekbones since Linda Evangelista didn’t get out of bed for less than ten grand. 

Arriving, as per usual, uncomfortably earlier than the only other person I knew, as in, person I knew in real life not just off the telly, I had to wander in front of the entrance for a few minutes. Rather than casually check my phone, or stare wistfully into the oncoming traffic, I chose instead the far more glamorous “slam into someone very famous while you try to extricate your cigarettes and your lighter from your too-tiny very-fancy going out clutch” move. I have no doubt that Damian Lewis, our dearly departed Nicholas Brody of Homeland, found the top of my head thumping into his shoulder as exciting as watching Claire Danes grimace for the past 3 years.

The Critique did finally arrive and we entered the mystical, ivy-coated corridors at the back of the theatre, today made over to resemble the secret garden where Titania wooed Bottom; that, or a very posh Surrey backyard. We sipped on something that is apparently British, and also sparkling white wine. Not Champagne, and not quite nice, but bubbly and alcoholic and I’m going to get my money’s worth and drink whatever they proffer. #youcantakethegirloutofparis 

I sipped, I stood, I stared, I laughed at the right times and made the right comments and holy-fucking-shit Kit Harrington just said excuse me to me! Jon Snow, who can take down a Dragon, a White Walker and Ygritte with only half his arm, can’t walk past me unless I turn to the side. Not sure if that is a good thing but I now have at least one actual famous person who has said something to me.

Then I saw Benedict.

 

Look very closely...

 

I saw him, I realised I could stand, in my little wedge heels and look straight into his eyes and became decidedly underwhelmed. #theyalwaysseemtallerontv The Critique, who is better at this game than I, managed a whole conversation with him. I managed to gape, gawp and gurn. Then we heard him speak.

How is it that a man can tell a story involving pissing in a shower and still sound ethereal? Still sound like his every vowel was spun from honey and brandy and cigar smoke… and a shitload of money? Could it be that all my lefty, pinko, commie values go speeding off into the sunset as quickly as my elastic torture knickers as soon as a perfectly rounded ‘good evening’ is emitted from the lips of a well spoken man? Is it only the well spoken that weaken the resolve of this hardened, tired and angry wench of the western suburbs? Am I incapable of fancying anyone that cannot whisper a sonnet and use the word shall in a sentence? Is my inherently downstairs self, coveting an elevated upstairs life? Am I only attracted to #poshtotty ?

That evening saw me discussing the potential outcome of the Scottish referendum, the social impact of Australia’s resource-based economy and the different responses to recent terrorist incidents in the Middle East. I did feel uncomfortable, because of the stupid pants, but I was sitting around a table of people who had things to say and that helped me think a little less of the Herculean Trial required each time I needed to pee.

Cinderella kicked off her slippers back home in the Material Mansion, alone, shortly after midnight. She washed her face and combed down the curls ready for another day slaving over Outlook. She had one night at the ball, and then, she went back to work.

 

“Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me”

Act 1, Scene 3 

 

In need of a magnifying glass? Sherlock & Moriarty

 

#backthen

This week I was reminded of how much I love living in London. 

This week, I saw three shows.

This week, I saw one show that made me feel tremendously uncomfortable, one that made me wretch and another that made me want to tear off my clothes and launch myself at the lead actor. Sadly, the uncomfortable one is the one that I’m still thinking about.

 

Richard Squared

 

Monty Python, synonymous with all that is both Funny and British, are now 5 men, all of who qualified decades ago for the old age pension. Strapped for cash, yes really, they’ve reunited for a handful of shows in London, shows that will net them enough income to recline in a Bora Bora bungalow until they expire, pass on, slip from this mortal coil, until they, like their famous parrot, die. 

The show was funny; they did You Were Lucky, Palin sang The Lumberjack Song, they did the Spanish Inquisition and they stifled giggles when they did The Dead Parrot. They gathered in white tuxedos for the finale and sang Bright Side of Life. When all 5 were on stage in was obvious how much more Palin seemed to enjoy it than either Jones or Cleese, both of whom might have preferred to stay indoors and watch the tennis with a sherry. But seeing them dance about with 15 women in lace negligees made me feel uncomfortable. Seeing them dance about with 15 women in French Maid tunics fitted with exposed plastic breasts made me vomit a little bit in my throat. #pervyoldmen

Worried that I might be prematurely transforming into a pearl clutcher, or worse still, a Liberal voter, I’ve since shared my concerns with a few friends. Some think I should lighten up, most responded with something along the lines of… that was how Monty Python was back then. 

Back then, Benny Hill used to run after naked Page 3 Girls giggling and groping like an adolescent with his first erection. Back then, students forced each other to perform sex acts in public to gain admittance to Greek societies. Back then, teachers chastised pupils with a bamboo rod or a wooden ruler. Back then, women were the property of their husbands to dispose of as they wished. Back then, bosses chain-smoked at their desks and slapped the exposed thighs of their underpaid secretaries. Back then, homes were insulated with asbestos, tomatoes thrived under DDT showers and cars spewed the fumes of leaded petrol into the acid rain. Back then…

Sorry, but if I can’t realistically expect a marriage proposal from a gentilhomme wearing a redingote, britches and a black silk top hat, I can’t buy into the idea that what went on back then is relevant today. If I am not allowed to wear a bonnet, if I am not allowed to smoke wherever the f*ck I like, if I have to work for a living, if I can’t play croquet, or sew, or paint, or dry flowers, then I’m telling you that plastic boobs on a 20 year old dancing around a man who could be her grandfather is not cool, not here and now. 

The crowd who went along to see Monty Python were a pretty mixed bag, but overwhelmingly comprised of Baby Boomers who’d made the expensive trip into town to relive their Thatcher-y youth. I’ve no doubt that for them, my father’s generation, the peep show that interspersed the absurdist humour was entirely appropriate, was a bit naughty^, was even a bit funny. For me, in light of the trial that was unravelling at the Crown Court down the road and the viral video of a young woman blowing 24 men in Magaluf, it felt more than anachronistic, it felt more than uncomfortable, it felt wrong.

I would not have been offended if the 15 negligée’d women were accompanied by 15 men wearing nothing but swimming trunks, but they weren’t. I would not have been offended if the 15 plastic-boobed women were partnered with 15 plastic-penised men, but alas, the men were wearing three-piece suits. I also think that between them, Jones, Gilliam, Cleese, Palin and Idle are among the funniest humans that have ever walked this earth. If they’d just sat down on the loo for 5 minutes and jotted their immediate, unedited thoughts, it would likely have been funnier than plastic breasts.

But thank my lucky sky full of stars*, this week, I saw two other plays.

Weighed down heavily with jetlag and barely able to keep my lids from closing, my eyeballs were treated to the delights of two Richards sharing Tolkien and rather dashing beards.

Richard III, starring the Hobbit, was a steamy, sweaty summer evening spent watching a rather small man play an evil genius in the very intimate (read, suffocating) Trafalgar Studios. I was so hot I thought I might have to strip and run into the stage, but The Critique was sitting beside me and I was wearing lace-up shoes. You might remember Martin Freeman as the naked guy in Love Actually or you may know him best as his current incarnation, the guy who makes Cumberbatch look even sexier in Sherlock. Whatever you like really, I’d never seen Richard III, it is gory and violent, it is a history, my least preferred of Shakespeare’s three genres, but this show was wonderful. Made all the more so by the appearance of the excellent Gina McKee as Elizabeth and the array of Tom Selleck-y moustaches. The play was set in the 70’s.

Unfortunately, as good as that Richard was, the other was a triumph. The Hobbit’s taller mate, Thorin Oakenshield, was getting all John Procter over at the Old Vic and I had been waiting impatiently for months to see Richard Armitage writhe in torment and regret. He gurned, he strutted, he screamed, he lifted an entire woman of the ground like she was a bag of potatoes and he cried bloody murder as the Christians played out their witch-hunt around him. He was extraordinary, the play is exceptional, I was transfixed for three hours and barely noticed when he took his shirt off.

Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953. He wrote it as an allegory for McCarthyism, he told the story of the 1692 Salem witch-hunts to warn his contemporaries of the dangers of a pack mentality and cash powered media. Arthur Miller used a back then story back then which, when played today, was entirely relevant, entirely entertaining…no plastic boobs required.

 

 

James McAvoy on the wall at Trafalgar..to lighten the mood

 

 

 

^I’ve since learned that the show was choreographed by Arlene Phillips; the woman who created Kenny Everett’s Hot Gossip

*Deliberate reference to the soundtrack of my life at this moment, Coldplay’s Sky Full of Stars