Big Brother Entertainment... and where are the neighbours?

I was looking for a picture of the Lynx Alaska "perfume" I've been wearing... only today did I realize IT is the reason I keep smelling FRANKINSENSE everywhere I go ~ it's on me!

But these trotterdonkey cats in the snow ~ real lynxes IN Alaska, look very cute.

It snowed YET AGAIN the other night. But was raining this morning. So I hope it doesn't freeze over again, else the streets will be fatal!



THIS year is the last ever Celebrity Big Brother, so the producers have pulled out all the stops to get some PROPER celebrities for a change (though on night one you can tell half are wondering who on earth the other half ARE!!!)







My favourites this year are Ivana Trump, who is far more down to earth than you'd expect and looks hilarious serving the other housemates dinner dressed in her minimum wage care worker costume and reading glasses... Stephanie Beacham (Dynasty, Seaquest DSV and innumerable others)... former footballing "hardman" Vinnie Jones pictured here famously tormenting Paul Gascgoine... and the American R&B star Sisqo who says "that lady is worth three-digit millions" and following Ivana like a lovesick puppy. All very entertaining.



VIDEO: Come and watch this ~ Ivana Trump dressed in pink and blue overalls as a carehome worker for Celebrity Big Brother... skivvying around serving other far lesser celebrities and former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, who seems to hate her... absolute classic!

This is absolute classic ~ seeing the multimillionaire socialite dressed in pink and blue overalls skivvying about serving other far lesser celebrities and former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, who seems to hate her, as a care home worker as part of a game on the reality show:



Classic televisual entertainment ~ from the peak of Stephanie Beacham's career:
IT IS... Stephanie Beacham vs Joan Collins in...
The Alexis-Sable CATFIGHT!!



Stephanie Beacham as canal-boat dwelling Martha dating "boring" Ken Barlow in dowdy British soap Coronation Street:





STOP PRESS!
SHHH!
I don't want to speak too soon, but my noisy neighbours have gone suspiciously QUIET... that can mean many things, but I hope it means just one... that they are NOT THERE ANY MORE!!

AND NEVER COMING BACK!

Cajun Chicken & A Real Ink Pen

I MISSED MORRISONS' special deal roast chicken legs yesterday lunchtime so I bought two raw drumsticks from the butchers by the MSG-chipshop (they have some secret recipe thing going on and I suspect MSG in the frying oil is surely it). These drumsticks were so enormous they looked like they'd come from a turkey. If not a swan. Anyway, rather than bang them in the oven 200C for 40 mins plain, I did a home-rapid-marinade consisting of Schwarz Cajun Seasoning in Value rapeseed oil Rapeseed's normally 10p a litre cheaper than sunflower or soya, is homegrown and lower in baddie-fats than either of the other two. Anyway I was quite liberal with the spicing and slavered on at least a flat teaspoonload on the two megalegs. These went in for the appointed time, after which I turned off the oven and let them cook inside as it cooled. Imagine my disappointment when, a full hour later, I knifed one open only to find a suspiciously pink interior. Unwilling to touch chicken that's even slightly underdone (and it would have been slightly undercooked if at all) I sliced the chicken off the bones, spread it out on the plate and oven-cooked for a further quarter hour.

This time, if anything, it was over done! But the cajun spicing and the skin came out amazingly crackly and gorgeous.

I will have to try this recipe again. for next time I have another lot of spices hardcore marinating in my cupboard (or should I slam it in the fridge?)

I was thinking of mixing this amazing cajun seasoning ~ which is quite similar to tikka masala, if you know that ~ in with flour to do home-made KFC. Can you do KFC in the oven? I don't really want to deep-fry because of the fire risk.

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Sorry about yesterday's post. I was so down and tired and empty nothing came to mind. bar what I'd seen on the previous night's Big Brother...

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I FOUND a fountain pen on the street outside a public toilet. A real live fountain pen! Yes: it was running around on its little legs, then stopped, peered up at me with sad eyes and implored, "Please help me find my owner. Pretty please!"

And it is quite pretty and girlie. Covered in rainbow stripes and stars. But it's made by Parker and they're the best (after the Swiss brand Lamy). Lamy nibs write as smoothly as if broken in 10 years ago ~ right from the day of purchase.

When I was younger (and pretentious enough) I wrote in real ink all the time. I was thinking, maybe I ought to take up that habit again. It might inspire me to pen a mighty work of Great Literature..(!)... (Or something)...

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AMY WINEHOUSE has been found not guilty of common assault after she gave a black eye to a "burlesque dancer" (stripper) who "shoved a camera" in her face without even asking...

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And how was your day?

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Illustrations: top ~ my chicken legs came out just like this. And I roasted them in a thing that looked exactly the same... Yellow pen by Lamy. Best fountain pens in the world. Amy Winehouse... looked far more sober than this at court today...

Big Brother Bea: Sound As a Pound

FIVE NEW HOUSEMATES came into the British Big Brother house last Friday.

British Big Brother is the last one going. Even here people are losing interest. Viewing figures are down a million on last year.

Since last Friday the rather stale house has been mightily pepped up.

First off blonde bitch Karly nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw the first new housemate was none other than her self-proclaimed multimillionaire Chinese "boyfriend" Kenny.

They were together for all of five minutes, for the public vote quickly had her booted out of the house.

Never have I seen a bigger Billy Liar come into that house. Sounding off about his own status, judging the "strength" of others. Yet when his ego hit a wall in the shape of fellow newcomer hippy housemate Bea it was he who came off worst.

But not after seemingly threatening that if their confrontation had happened outside he would have solved it by means of his "friends".

He claimed to have "sat across the table from the most dangerous man in the world". One thing I've learned about dangerous people: they keep quiet about that side of their lives.

I think Bea dealt with the situation admirably. After confessing how repellent she found the man, she accepted his apology (you can easily get kicked out for threatening behaviour in there) and then decided rather than ignoring him she should show him what he's missing and "hippify him up". Even offered to take him out afterwards...

Halfwit and Bea meanwhile seem to have found love with each other... coo

Spare a Thought For Halfwit

NEVER APOLOGIZE. NEVER EXPLAIN. ~ IMMANUEL KANT. As quoted at Melody Lee's blog...

Spare a thought for poor Freddy Halfwit. He is a contestant on the current series of Big Brother. This year Big Brother played a trick on all potential housemates, by letting them into the house, yet forcing them to "earn" the right to full-housemateship by completing (usually bluffed) tasks e.g. "walking across broken glass in bare feet" ~ it was actually sugar glass as used in the movies. Poor Freddie, and a braindead topless model called Sophie made it first to the diary room and were told they would only be allowed in if they changed their names by deed poll to Halfwit and Dogface. Which they duly did. Nobody calls Dogface that because she's actually quite pretty (though what she has in prettiness she loses in dullness bigtime). But poor Halfwit is universally known by that name.

For his terrible singing. His crackpot theories (which actually hold a lot of sense, it's their expression and endless repetition that's halfwitted). His constant need to apologize and explain and demand to know what's the problem rather than just dropping things and just letting them go (a skill I'd like to think I learned years ago but we all make mistakes). His gone-out facial expressions (the photo is quite characteristic). And best of all, his description of a good party: "we all eat lasagne and sit around strumming guitars all night and philosophizing" (but I'd be quite intrigued to attend one of these.)

Now, as you probably know, each week, every housemate must enter two nominations, with "valid reasons" for whatever housemates they think should face the public vote that Friday. It says everything that poor Halfwit has faced eviction EVERY SINGLE WEEK.

From being an annoying character who smiled inanely and proclaimed he was "drunk on life", he is now limping, wounded, apologizing for every insult thrown his way.

Now, just like a shark with a broken fin, the others circle around him regularly taking pops at him and anything he says or does is just used against him. If I could pass in a secret message I'd say, "Freddie: stop apologizing and explaining. Keep quiet and get strength from that

Never apologize. Never explain. said Immanuel Kant (as quoted at Melody Lee's blog).

In his defence, poor halfwit is intelligent (too intelligent; this has been his biggest failing: his way of expressing philosophical points e.g. about the house being divided into "wolves, sheep, shepherds and individuals" in his posh accent comes over as patronizing) but best of all he seems quite pure of heart, which is quite an unusual thing these days... Far far more of a fascination than the shallow wannabes who make up more than half of the Big Brother house year on year...

HAVE A LOOK AT THIS:



For the record, I liked Angel the most. She was a genuine individual and only got knocked out for ridiculously going around telling the girls they all "looked pregnant" and "needed to lose 10kg each" the day before nominations. Hardly the actions of a "schemer who knows what she's doing," as Lisa ((pink hairstripe) rival lesbian and the biggest gameplayer in the house) put it. Her Russian accent was very sexy and despite the lesbionic chic I thought her heartshaped Madonna face very pretty:



FOOT MUSHROOMS ~ GOING ALREADY! From a choice of "Lamasil Once" ~4g @ 1%, £8 or Lamsil ordinary ~ 15g@1%, only £6... (Do they think we're idiots?) ... Which do you think I went for..??!? It's working very efficaciously, thankyouverymuchindeed...

My feet are less cracked and dry. FAR less smelly ~ yeeurkh! They never were "fissured and running with yellow pus" as the leaflet described the most extreme manifestation.

But they were getting highly inconvenient in all this heat. And are far less inconvenient now...


NOW TO MY TROTTERDONKEY SPANISH... I have por favors and yo, tú, él, nostros etc verbs coming out of my ears. Together with accompanying Spanish mandolin sounds. I'm starting to think these courses have booked the same sessions guitar player. A poor old man with a donkey trundling across the Andalusían countryside swigging wine from old skins as he clip-clops from recording studio to recording studio. "Oh man! Today I must go back recording studio for BBC Sueños ~ I tell them mañana, mañana, they no listen... why they no call yesterday when I do Teach Yourself, Berlitz and Routledge!" he mutters as the donkey wearily treads on...

... Not to be too ambitious but I was thinking of trying to get on an A Level Spanish course in the autumn. An A Level is what you do after completing three month's of solid effort in a British high school diluted into five years. I.e. you pass the GCSE or lower school certificate in a language. To get this you must be able to read basic texts, e.g. menus, instructions, postcards, letters, emails, handle yourself in everyday situations talking about yourself and your background, ordering food and drink, buying things, giving directions etc. And have good listening comprehension skills for recordings e.g. of people talking about themselves and their families, their passtimes and musical tastes. The courses I've got out of the library cover all this and the approximate vocabulary of 1500 words you need for a GCSE. Though you need to give it quite some welly to pick up all the words. I am only on lesson 3 of 15 and have been putting in a good 2 hours a day. And I still keep forgetting absolutely elementary things like how to say "you are" using "ser" (to be constantly) rather than "estar" (to be in the moment). Ser is what you ARE, estar is e.g. how you feel. I get the distinction but forget the declensions. Anyway I thought that might be a good goal, if I can complete these studies full-on for three months I'd like to do an A Level or higher school certificate in Spanish ~ but ONLY if it includes literature studies. I hate the modern business-oriented courses. We did French like that at A Level but German with literature and the French felt so soulless in comparison... Not to mention the fact that literature adds to your vocabulary immensely, especially if you can do poetry (fewer words, more meaning, less flicking through the bilingual dictionary...)

~~OH SHUT UP!!~~

I had a browse over the internet but found no inspiring-looking courses. Maple Syrup launches to the most obvious "oh do a course in Spanish" but you get so many free course credits paid for you and I'm not wasting these on basic level courses I can race through at home: if I'm willing to practise ad nauseum for hours each day. Anyone can do it this quick if they apply themselves, there's nothing special about me except the desire to learn.

After all this slogging through CDs, dictionaries and filling notebooks full of grammar and vocabulary I'm utterly drained. Which makes me wonder whether I'll ever be able to hold down a proper job. Because it's not as if I'll accept workworkwork and just sleep as a compromise. No! I'll STILL be learning 2 languages ON TOP of a full day's activities ~ see what I mean? There's no "instead" about it...

~~WHO CARES ABOUT ANY OF THIS... BLAH BLAH BLAH BLIBBLIBBLIB... B L O B .. ! ~~

OK so that's me for today. And how was your day? Have a cheery weekend, y'all... and don't forget furry Friday's foxes BELOW...


áéíñóúü ¡...? and ¿...!