Dear Clothes People...

And by "clothes people" I mean all of you. Designers, buyers, the whole chain that gets fabric wearable items into shops.

I have friends of all different sizes. Tall friends, short friends, skinny and not so skinny friends, apples, pears, hourglasses, twigs, rectangles...Whatever the defining shapes are this season.

One common denominator for all of us, I'm finding, is that NONE of us can find clothes that fit properly. None of us are the same size in every shop. None of us are catered to by ANY shops, as far as sizes go.

I put it to you, Clothes People, that the problem is in fact not us and our weird and wonderful varying shapes, it is YOU.

This many randomly sized people can't be wrong.

Love, Me x

Listography: The 5 Signs Of Christmas.

As soon as we hit October, the countdown to Christmas begins (unless you want to start at 100 sleeps, in which case you started on Sept 16th), and so I await The Five Signs of Christmas. . .

1). The Magical Elves are back!! No, I haven't finally flipped. These are the Magical Elves of which I rave:

Cadbury's Magical Elves are amazing. Well, OK, they're elf-shaped Freddo bars with popping candy in them. Not that that's not amazing, but what they represent is even more amazing. Christmas time is near!

2). The Boots Christmas Gift Guide. This sign seems to be arriving earlier and earlier. I remember sitting as a kid every Halloween after my trick-or-treating, waiting for Trick-or-Treaters to arrive, reading the Boots Christmas Gift Guide and the Studio Catalogue, sneaking sweets out of the Halloween bowl and making lists of things that I would never be able to afford. Holiday is two pay days away!

3). DFS "In Your Home For Christmas" adverts. The only DFS adverts that aren't depressingly annoying (Concerningly though, they do seem to be running one for the END of the sale?! Do they know something we don't? Is DFS run by the Mayans?!! *Debates pre-emptive Christmas on Dec. 11th just in case*). Christmas is near! But still far away enough to buy a new sofa. . .

4). Christmas Lights Switch-On. For us, the Friday after Bonfire Night is the big Christmas lights switch-on hoo-ha at work. And, even though for the past few years the decorations outside our shop have looked like giant glittery hemorrhoids, it does still put you in the mood for Christmas.

5). The Coca-Cola Truck Advert. I love this advert so much that I literally have the T-shirt. No really, I do, and it looks like this:

(Photograph Copyright TruffleShuffle.com)

HOLIDAYS ARE COMING!!! :D

Let's "Celebrate" Twilight BD p.2!! < /sarcasm>

And by "celebrate", clearly I mean mock unmercilessly with a little bit of pulling to shreds on the side.

Apparently people are already excited about the upcoming Twilight film. Cineworld are celebrating with a "Twilight Day" when you can watch all of the other films, back to back, finishing with the new film at 00:01 on release day. But for me, Twilight is wrong on so many levels.

I'm not just blindly criticising, I've read the books, and seen most of the films. Now that I have the full story, I just don't like it. It irritates me. It disturbs me. It also disturbs me that Stephanie Meyer advertises it as a lovely, teenage romance book, when a lot of it is vile on levels teenage girls won't see.

Edward is a stalker. If your teenage daughter had a regular teenage boy loitering around the garden and sneaking into her room in the dead of night to watch her sleep, that would raise security/legal issues. If the daughter was under-age and the man was much older, that would raise even more legal issues (and possibly a few pitchforks and flaming torches, depending on where you live).

If he were human, he would be a mentally (and occasionally physically) abusive, controlling partner. He takes away her right to make her own decisions, monopolises her time taking her away from what social circle she has and making her more reliant on him, threatens with displays of his power.

Meyer insists that Bella is a feminist because feminism "is the right to make a choice". Which is all very well. But that choice is essentially between necrophilia and bestiality. Lovely teenage romance book.

Let's get right to the heart of the matter. The cold, dead, unbeating heart. Now the whole issue of the last Twilight book and the latest film is Bella and Edward's child (who's bizarre compounded name escapes me at the moment). Let's go over that again. Child. Vampire . . . creating child. Now, I'm going to assume that you are all old enough to be familiar with the necessities behind creating children. But just incase any kids stumble across this, I'm not going to go into it. But essentially my problems with this stem from the cold, dead, unbeating heart. That, and this quote from Meyer:

"Most human fluids are absent in my vampires. No sweat, no tears, no blood besides that which they ingest–they don’t have their own blood."

Now for those who paid attention in Biology, we are going to be needing some blood to rush to some places here. There are no mentions of vampiric turkey-basters, put it that way. Edward has no blood. So some fans get around that by saying "But vampires are always described  as having bodies as hard as marble, granite, rock . . ." so maybe blood isn't necessary. Fair enough. I'll give way on the blood thing. Let's assume for a moment that Edward is a paler, wussier, more constipated-looking version of Thing from the Fantastic Four (sorry geeks). Other fluids are still required. See Meyer quote above.

And another thing . . .If vampires of both sexes all have rock-hard marble bodies . . . Well that just doesn't sound sexy at all to me. Surely the romantic scenes would have been more like this:

"It's clobberin' time!"

 





So [spoiler alert, if you care] there's pestle 'n' mortar time, there's a baby, Bella's a vampire (dear goodness, that miserable face for an eternity, ugh), there's a hot-blooded teenage werewolf boy fixated on a baby girl . . .Wait, what?! Excuse me? So . . . Jacob is madly in love with/fixated on Bella, until she goes all bitey, and then the fixation transfers to her baby when their eyes meet. Love at first sight. Which is covered in the book by the convenient "Oh, he loves her like a brother whilst she's a baby...It's only when she 'comes of age' that he will romantically fall in love with her . . ." So it's OK that he falls in love with a seven-year-old who looks seventeen, because before that he considered her his little sister?

And then my brain exploded.

'Tis The Season...For Knitting!

I know quite a few people who are bringing out their needles and wool now that we are heading into Autumn (though it has been unseasonably warm over here in recent weeks, I think The Change is upon us). Last year, I decided that I would be one of them. I did manage it. I managed three thin scarves and one giant scarf, and another scarf-that-was-too-short-to-be-a-scarf-so-it's-now-a-weird-snood-thing.

Now I have to admit, I am not the best knitter. I cover this by claiming to be saving a craft or two for when I am old. To be honest, I firmly believe that a lot of the old ladies you see merrily knitting away have actually been knitting, making mistakes, undoing, and re-knitting the same piece of work since they were in their twenties. I do have many, many friends who are awesome at knitting though. I have friends who are so awesome at knitting they write about knitting for other people who know about knitting. Even my own Grandpa is a better knitter than I am, and I'm fairly certain he would win an award for "Least Likely To Knit". He can do stripes and use tiny thin needles, both of which are beyond me.

So far I have tried:

"Regular" Knitting
I was always a bit surprised how bad I am at knitting. I'm a creative person. I can sew, cross-stitch, draw, model, craft, bake...all pretty well (yes, modesty is another talent...I did say pretty well). Knitting? Not happening. Well, it happens a little. I can make squares, and rectangles. Which is all very well for making larger square or rectangular objects, but that's about it. I can even join rectangles together at the ends now and make snoods. But we all know how short-lived that fashion trend will be. *sigh* At least I'm not Knit-One-Drop-One any more, but even so, squares and rectangles are my limit. One colour, plain, chunky, squares and rectangles. But at least it's not a total fail.

That's only "regular" knitting, of course. I decided to branch out and see if Other Knitting was any easier.

Crocheting
I decided to try crocheting mainly because a magazine came out that gave away a crochet hook and two balls of wool to practice with. After a good couple of hours, much pulling apart of failed crocheting and even more hurling of profanity (and crochet hooks...), the project was cast aside to the back of the craft box, certain that the lovely blanket on the magazine cover was far out of reach.

A few months later, I decided to give it another shot. Fortunately for my sanity, the magazine had disappeared into the abyss that is my craft area, so off to Youtube I went. Bored of squares and rectangles, I decided to find something else. Flowers. That'll be pretty. I found this awesome tutorial video and, after an hour or so of meticulous pausing of the video every stitch or so, I had a fairly presentable-ish flower. So crocheting is not a total fail either. Yay!

French Knitting
I had one of those cute little French knitting dolls when I was a little girl.

Image Copyright myriadonline.co.uk

Now, when you're little, French knitting dolls are GREAT. You can, in a relatively short period of time, create a nice long (let's face it) woollen earthworm-esque object. As a child, that's great. Doll/teddy scarves, woolly bracelets, too-stretchy-to-be-useful shoelaces, hair bobbles, you name it, as long as it looks like a woollen earthworm, you can make it. I even remember making a coaster by wrapping my French knitting into a spiral, which was neither use nor ornament, given that a) it served little use in protecting furniture from heat or moisture, being made of wool, and b) it was made of a particularly eye-burning shade of neon (practically luminous) acid green wool (it was actually made from remnants of wool from a cardigan my Nana knitted me. I'm a neon 80s child, don't judge me...).

Now, re-think French knitting as an adult. An adult who has little to no use for woollen earthworms. An adult who has to ask a pretty obvious question: What the fudge do you use French knitting for?! Once you've knitted it, I mean. Once you're sat draped in woollen earthworms like Rapunzel draped in hair. I have images of little French Grandmas, French knitting away with their little dolls, until they have about a mile and a half long woollen earthworm, and then painstakingly coiling a jumper for their grandchildren like a potter coiling a vase on a pottery wheel.

Image Copyright Pot Bank Dictionary.

I say all hail those who are good at knitting. I will probably be practicing well into my 90s, when I finally create a perfect knitted item.

So now the only question is: Do I want to be buried in my final/first successful project, or leave it as a family heirloom?

There's a thought...I could always try a loom...

Listography: 5 Things I DON'T Hate About The Olympics 2012

If you missed my previous posts, here are Top 5 Reasons I Hate The Olympics 2012, and 5 More Things I Hate About The Olympics 2012.

But, the Olympics aren't all bad, even to me. So, here are 5 Things I DON'T Hate About The Olympics 2012.

1). The Awesome Nails/Hair Statements. All of the atheletes have their national uniforms that must be worn at all times when competing, but they, especially the ladies, are finding some wonderful ways of showing off their patriotic spirit/personalities. There have been some iffy moments (oh Ryan Lochte, you don't need a sparkly diamond grill to be pretty), but on the whole, they have been awesome. Also, I REALLY want to visit the nail bar in the video above.

Photo Rob Schumacher, USA Today Sports

2). Animals are allowed to compete. Well, horses. But seriously, I think horses should be paving the way for other animals in sport. We could have a whole animal Olympics, really. Rabbit hurdles, guinea pig long-jump, alligator/shark swimming (seperate pools, obviously), sheep racing, squirrel gymnastics, gorilla wrestling (two gorillas, not gorilla vs human), snail racing, monkey tennis (sorry foreigners who haven't seen Alan Partridge...just laugh, it's funny I assure you), and I'm fairly certain monkeys could be trained to fling discus and javelin instead of poo, there are definite possibilities here. Obviously the Olympic Village would have to be way more segregated than it is at the moment, just for the safety of the atheletes, but I think it could work.*

3). The red button. The BBC channels (for people in other countries where it might not...) have an extra features menu, that appears if you press the red button on your remote, and allow you to view other content/programmes that are additional to what's on the regular channel. The Olympics have a menu all of their own, which essentially allow you to flick through all of the sports live, and choose which live feed you want to watch. This basically means that you can flick through and look for the most attractive atheletes (I mean...most interesting sport...), and bingo! I love this feature.

4). We actually appear to be quite good at quite a lot of it. Sadly, we usually seem to focus all of our money, attention and TV coverage in England on sports that we are profoundly bad at. Football, cricket...Football...Cricket...You get the jist. It's nice to see us actually being televised at being good at something.

5). The Opening Ceremony was actually pretty awesome. Granted, we didn't (IMO) top the giant inflatible beavers, and there were some sketchy moments, like Paul McCartney, the formation Abe Lincolns (come on, non-UK residents...When you first saw it did you think Isambard Kingdom Brunel, or Abraham Lincoln? Honestly?), and the NHS bit with the commentator reporting that "Children are often afraid of staying in hospital...Here children's book characters make it less frightening..." as a giant puppet Voldemort seemingly lifted a small girl's hospital bed up into the air accompanied by scary music and fired sparks out of his wand. But on the whole, I enjoyed it, and I have to say, I LOVED the idea for the flame, it was just beautiful.

* FYI...I am opposed to cruelty to animals/real-life animal "sports" that involve any kind of cruelty at all.

22-04-12 - Disney Hollywood Studios

On Sunday, we headed for Disney Hollywood Studios. I think this was possibly another park that we didn't quite get the best out of, though we did go back a second (and maybe a 3rd?) time.

I'll spare you all the stuff about where we parked, etc, etc. The parks all have really cute names for their car parks. But, if you care, you probably already know all about that! Take it as read that arrival at the parks (unless otherwise specified) went pay, park, get on golf-cart train, get off golf-cart train, enter park. :)

I didn't really know what to expect from DHS. Like AK, for me it was one of the peripheral attractions when we were planning our trip, and I hadn't really done much research on it, other than it had Muppet Vision 3D and Star Tours, both of which we really wanted to see/ride.

I loved DHS! The theming was awesome, especially all the 50s buildings.

We decided that, as we had done the rest of the holiday, we would just go on whatever rides we stumbled across with short lines! First up: The Great Movie Ride! I fell in love with the queuing area! I love film props, especially costumes.

Mary Poppins' carousel horse! I love Mary Poppins, my copy of it had no credits at the start or the end because I'd worn them off watching it so much!!

The Great Movie Ride is...well...GREAT! There was a little too much "rider interaction" for my liking, and I don't really like scary movies (and have a REALLY low threshold for scary!), but I still really enjoyed it even though I hadn't seen some of the films referenced. My favourite bit was definitely The Wizard Of Oz! I love that film, and Munchkinland looked just like it does in the film.

I was glad one of John's favourite films was in there too...Casablanca!  We actually had a Casablanca-themed wedding reception! I didn't manage to get a shot of that scene though. :( The plane used in the Casablanca scene is actually only half a plane. The back half is in the Jungle Cruise! Also, it's not the plane used in the actual film. Apparently some tour guides still say/hint that it is. Do you really think Disney would be allowed to cut the real plane in half?! No way!! (Plus there was only one real plane in Casablanca, and it wasn't used in the closing scenes...It's the one that delivers Major Strasser).

We had a good wander around before we went on anything else. One of the things John remembered for MGM Studios (as it was last time he went) was the Indiana Jones show, so we decided to head in for a showing of that.

 We tried to only eat one meal a day in the parks, and go somewhere else for something different. It didn't always work, but that was the theory! For lunch we decided to hit up Pizza Planet. First though I stopped for some snaps of The Muppets!

We ♥ The Muppets! :D

The view from our table...Looking out at Swedish Chef Catering!

 The pizza was scrumptious, I see now why I've seen so many great reviews of Disney pizza! Even Pizza Hut pizza isn't as nice as Disney pizza. We ate upstairs in Pizza Planet, watched over by the three-eyed aliens (one of my favourite TS characters!). I found a souvenir from Pizza Planet in my bag when we got home...Cheese in a packet!! Now, maybe this is normal over there, but I can honestly say I have never seen paremesan cheese in little (like sugar) packets before!

We decided to stick with the galactic theme, and star the post-lunch rides with Star Tours. We struck REALLY lucky that day. The quoted wait time was over an hour, however we wandered up past Tattooine Traders (I was really impressed that it looked "Just like it does in the film!" Only to be told that there is no Tattooine Traders in the film. I guess Star Wars just isn't Disney enough for me to pay 100% attention!!) to see what everyone was standing around staring at. Turns out we had just missed the Pixar Pals parade! :( However, whilst we were standing around bemoaning our bad timing (well, I was, John didn't really care!) the CM in charge of the queue opened the lines back up again. "Are you waiting to ride Star Tours?" she asked. We replied that yes, were were now! And we were let straight in first! No 60+min queue for us! We did meet the back of the queue who must've been waiting since before the parade, but we only had about a 10min wait. Buh-bye, 60+min queue!!

C3PO!

 The queue for ST is like an intergalactic airport, with R2D2, C3PO, and other characters from the film interacting around you. I was actually a little disappointed that we didn't have a few more minutes to take in the sights, as it was SO well done (well, what did I expect, it is Disney, after all!). Soon we had collected our 3D glasses (which, bizarrely, were different both times we went on the ride? Not sure if they switched from one design to the other and we were on the cross-over period, but I found that a little weird!) and were loaded into our space craft.

I'm glad that I took this picture of John in the 3D flight goggles...because they are totally different to the ones you see on everyone else's pictures, and also the ones we got later in the trip! Mine were the same, old-fashioned style 3D glasses. The ones we had on our next "flight" were the usual silvered ones.

I wasn't sure what to expect from ST, not being a Star Wars fan (I love Yoda and the Ewoks, and know the plot from "The Saga Begins" thanks to the Weird Al Yankovic song...and here endeth my Star Wars knowledge). I LOVED it. I think I'd go as far as to say that I loved it more than John, who isn't overly into the in-your-face simulator rides (it's hard to tell, his outward enthusiasm barely putters above level 2-3 on a normal person's scale). It was definitely one of my favourite rides, and I love the fact that every time you ride it the story is different. Awesome, AWESOME idea. You exit, of course, into Tattooine Traders. I think it was on one of the buses at Nasa that the driver told us about the most important Florida State Law: Always Exit Through The Gift Shop. It's funny but true, EVERY major attraction has it's exit doors open straight into a gift shop! Seriously, if we ever go with children, I am taking Post-Ride Blindfolds to be put on at the end of every ride. Wayyyyyyyy cheaper!

After we'd had our fill of browsing in Tattooine Traders, we headed back to The Muppet theatre, via the awesome...er...space...bike...thing.

To The Muppet Theatre!!

Cutest. Queuing. Area. EVER. I took more photographs of it later in our trip...Once again on this visit, we just walked in right as the doors were open and Bingo! No queue. S'ok, you can hate me later. :P

Did I mention how much my husband LOVES The Muppets?! I think this was one of the best bits of the trip for him.

I forgot to take a photo of us in our Muppet-Vision 3D glasses. :( Oh well. The Muppet Show is amazing, I loved it. Bean Bunny is one of my very favourite characters (carol-singing in Muppet Christmas Carol?! SO adorable!!), and I think he's normally really under-used, so this show made me really happy!

Even the shop is perfectly themed, with cute little signs all over the place, it was brilliant.

We went for a wander next (I think we were headed for Streets Of America? Can't remember now), and we spotted a Meet 'n' Greet spot, so we joined the queue!

Ka-chow! It's Lightning McQueen! And Tow Mater!! :D

We found the Singing In The Rain umbrella!

I told John to do a Singing In The Rain pose. I guess he wasn't into that.

I was! The best bit of the whole umbrella escapade was the Hispanic family waiting to use the umbrella after us. Whilst I held this pose, I slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwly rotated backwards like a saloon door. They were so bemused by the crazy English girl, they couldn't stop laughing!! Fortunately, neither could I!

Streets Of America.

Lights, Motors, Action! Unfortunately we didn't get to see the show. :( I would have been a lot more keen to see it if I'd realised that Lightning McQueen was in it!

The fountain from Splash!

Props from Pirates of the Caribbean!

Waiting for The Backlot Tour.

The shed from Hannah Montana: The Movie...*ahem*...Apparently. So I'm told...

I've totally seen the movie. In the cinema. It was awesome. *oh the shame*

Some props on the way to the little tram cars. I didn't get any shots of the pre-tour show.

The Earfel Tower! :D

The Costume Dept. I SOOOOOOOOO want to work there. That would be my dream job. Unfortunately 9.5hrs is a bit of a long commute. :(

HERBIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

N234MM...One of the planes Walt Disney used to scout areas in Florida to place Walt Disney World.

Catastrophe Canyon.

Fire!

Catastrophe!!

Surprisingly, I DIDN'T get wet! John did, but not much.

The pumps and cannons that cause the catastrophe.

The N234MM again.

Haven't we all got some?!

One thing I really wanted to see at DHS was Beauty And The Beast. It really made me want to see the whole show!

My favourite costume of all! Katy Perry meets Beauty And The Beast!!

Mrs Potts has clearly been pulling a few all-nighters!

It was starting to look busier when we got out of the show, so we headed for a wander around.

This beautiful car was just parked up outside!!

I chickened out and we didn't go on Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. Maybe next time.

I had heard LOADS of recommendations for Fantasmic! at DHS, and so I knew that we would have to stick around for that! All of the guide books and websites recommended getting there at least an hour before the show started. I can't remember quite what time we arrived, but it was at least an hour! We got some popcorn and (totally amazing) caramel corn, and took our seats. This was about the time we realised the difference between caramel corn and popcorn. We'd expected caramel corn to be like Butterkist toffee popcorn, and popcorn to be like cinema sweet popcorn. Apparently not. Popcorn is always salty. :S

Great view!!

The down-side to getting to Fantasmic! really early: The "entertainers" they have warming up (/winding up) the crowd. They were awful. SO annoying. Also the waiting music is loads of really bad modern versions of Disney classic tracks. Yeah...the wait was probably the least fun we had on Disney property. However, the show was worth the wait a hundred times over.

Yay! The awful "entertainers" are gone!! :D

Here they come!! Fantasmic! is where you can see the most characters in one place at one time in any park.

And that concludes our day at Disney Hollywood Studios! :D Fantastmic! was an amazing show, I loved it. Not as much as I love Wishes, which I think is my all-time favourite show EVER, but it was pretty damn good!

After we left DHS we headed to Hooters for something to eat. We're hockey people, it was the play-offs...perfect place for us! Plus I love Hooters (I think I love it more than John, how weird is that?!) and at home, the nearest Hooters is about 50 miles away, so we only get to go once or twice a year. We got an AWESOME table, we could see hockey on about 5 screens all around us. I had my usual boneless BBQ wings, but I had to splash out this time and had dessert too! The funniest/most uncomfortable thing at Hooters was the table full of guys sat behind us. They were majorly hitting on their (and our) waitress, telling her all about how they worked at Disney World, they got all these freebies, the cast shop, blah blah blah. You could tell she'd heard it a million times before! They were asking her all these questions, to "win" fastpasses for Splash Mountain (where one of them supposedly worked). In the end they tipped her in fastpasses for Splash Mountain. She was complaining to us that now she has to spend her own money to get to use her tip! She didn't pass them on though...haha!