Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Hating with Honesty Part Three

To be honest, I don't think I'm a really vehement 'hater' and this is only my third Hating with Honesty post in seven years: the first one was published in 2007 and the last one in 2008. However, a few niggles have started to emerge beyond the obvious ones such as why is Kim Kardashian the most Googled person for 2012 and are we allowed to punch anyone who says 'for the win' yet?

Here are the things that make me want to whistle air through my imaginary dentures and waggle my crab-like finger in the air.....

Ryan Gosling















I honestly don't see the attraction.  I even - and this causes me no small amount of shame - found a second-hand copy of The Notebook; read it to find out what the big deal was and suffered for my curiosity before suffering again through the exrementally soppy movie. What is the magic oestrogen-luring essence that this man has that I can't perceive?  He looks like he should be decorating the top of my latte, not headlining movie marquees....

Boston Terriers













I'm a dog person. When Milly's with me, I have to provide a wide enough berth so that she doesn't snap at her fellow canines in jealousy, but when she's not, my trips are always made longer due to the need to stop, ask 'Is he/she friendly?' before having a pat and a chat. But Boston Terriers repel me. They seem to have scored all the leftover body parts of a Corgi, Pug, Bulldog and the many unwanted mutant features of inbreeding, put into a fur-lined blender and tipped out with an unappetising 'glug' onto the ground with the final humiliation to be left without a tail.  Like X-Factor contestants raving on about how much they love their mothers, Boston Terriers always leave me shuddering slightly.

Apple tarts / Tarte Tatin

Cake. Cake. CAKE. The French Suisse seem to believe that everything tastes better in, on or under flaky pastry. But a dry croissant for breakfast or a sheet of pastry with some apple slices pressed into it gets boring very, very quickly.  Without moistness, self raising flour, chocolate, icing or custard it's just a brown rectangle of over-priced snooze; the Tom Cruise of bakery produce. 'Oh, goodie. Here's the eleven hundredth boulangerie selling tarte tatin. How exciting and creative.'  CAKE!

Channing Tatum



















I haven't seen any of his movies but even in my advanced state of ageing I'm not unaware of the various swoonings and droolings over this bloke that occurs with sickening regularity online.

He's sort of musclier and chunkier than Ryan Gosling, but the question is the same: Why? What is this flesh and bone replica of Mr Potato Head exuding that brings all the cerebrally-challenged chickadees to his chippery?  Shouldn't he be putting on my winter tyres and topping up my antifreeze?

Zombies and vampires

Buffy whooshed by without a glance. Twilight books were endured when my eleven year old was reading them and quickly summarised as cold blooded Mills and Boon for virgins. Vampire Diaries and the plethora of zombie telly shows and movies leave me about as excited as seeing tarte tatin on long haul economy flight menu.  Why not be done with it and have the vampires (sexy, boring and murderous), zombies (irretrievably stupid on all levels) wage war with the ridiculously cartoonish Marvel characters that also seem to hold so many movie-goers' attention?  Winner is the last man (or half robot or undead corpse in love with a wolf) standing!

Bushy beards on young blokes













Fellas, most of you, when you're in your twenties, are lovely to look at.  However, when the hipster urges take over and you decided to grow a bushy beard, you take me back to those oh-so-steamy photos of 1850s gold prospectors, upstanding Victorian philanthropists and men who ate each other when lost on expeditions.  Having to hold a brief conversation with a bearded bloke with cappuccino froth dangling from his Dastardly Dan moustache was not a heavenly moment for me last week.

Land agents to renters

We pay a small - no, large - fortune to rent an apartment that has not been updated since 1970.  The balcony turns into a small swimming pool when it rains and has since flooded the apartment downstairs. Sapphire's unused bidet develops a strong ammonia and mouldy pong that permeates the bedrooms at least once a week and we were sent three angry letters (in French) when our rent payment was not processed by the bank and was subsequently five days overdue.

So, with fairly frequent contact between my good self and the man who manages the property, it was a big surprise when he wrote back to my email last week requesting that someone come and look at our stove top (two out of the four hotplates have decided that being 'hot' is no longer their bag) and announced that he didn't know how I was.

"Pardon me, monsieur? YOU and four other men knocked on my door yesterday to come and see la piscine (the pool) that was my balcony for yourselves, checking the drain and taking photographs. Have I so little charisma that you have forgotten me already?"

But you are not in my records, he wrote back.

"Erm, I must be, buddy - because you send me rent slips every month with MY NAME on them and we've been transferring you money for over eighteen months now...."

Let me check, he replied, suspicion oozing from every keystroke.

"So, about the oven and the enormous whistling draft that blasts through our living room from the sliding door..."

Yes, you are on our records, he wrote, as though he was informing me of that fact.

I KNOW THAT, stupid rental man!  "So the oven...."

Please email me tomorrow when I'm available to read through tenant's concerns before forwarding them on to the owners for consideration.

Horrible ugly stupid rude rental man!  I decided not to email that as my reply.

BBC News channel

The Beeb is mostly known for being a stalwart for consistency, fair-minded reporting and for looking beyond their own borders.  Having a news-only channel would, we thought, be a brilliant way of keeping up with current events all around the world in a language we could understand (unless the story came from Wales).

Sadly not so, unless you are only capable of absorbing three stories at a time.  Even then, those three stories are repeated over and over and over for at least two days, so that breakfast time on day two will see the same video footage from the day before. No, not overnight so that muesli munchers can come up to speed with things that occurred while they were still snoozing in their doonas, but the day before.

Sometimes, the typer of the ticker tape thingy that runs along the bottom of the screen can only be arsed to write a single sentence on a single story that rolls by at a snail's place ad infinitum.  Surely, if sending reporters to all corners of the globe and footage and editing is prohibitively expensive, Tony the ticker tape typer can pop in a few more sentences for us to read?

'Rate me' Facebook photos



















Erk.  Any photo where the subject matter is one's self, especially holding an iPhone where the subject can gaze at one's self during the taking of it, is enough to make all prospective viewers want to heave and (fairly) surmise, "No wonder he's single, he's already found his life-long partner in love."

And the girls ...... oh dearie, dearie me.  Being friends of friends with buddies and acquaintances of Sapphire has shown me that the cleverly angled iPhone photo that enlarges the eyes, gives the duck pout credence and recedes the chin into the far distance - all done while pushing the shoulders unnaturally forward to produce a credible replica of cleavage - makes up approximately 98% of all photos loaded up onto Facebook pages by girls aged between eleven and twenty nine.

"Like my new winter hat," asks Bubble, which is sitting so far back on her head in order to show off the pulled forward shoulder length hair, off-the-shoulder tank top and double-handed upside down peace signs.  Or, "I'm so ugly today," says Twinkle, leaning forward in her black bikini, fluttering her kohl lined enlarged eyes and pouting in pink frost lip shimmer.

If I wasn't so old and supposed to be a role model or sensible mother or some other such tomfoolery thing like that, I'd say, "Yes, you are. No go and put some clothes on and turn your account off."

Nicki Minaj / Kei%$#a / Rihanna et al



















Notes for all of you:

If you need auto tune, quit the business.

If you can sing - then for Lindts' sake go have a good scrub in the shower, put on some clothes and stop putting out videos that ram it down young girls' throats that it's only when you behave like nymphomaniac pole dancin' gang molls does your 'song' hit the itunes charts. Please.

Kate Moss interview in Vanity Fair

Ah, the chat that was going to reveal the secretive, never talkative Ms Moss. The one that would delve deeply under the surface to find out how she thinks, what her motives are, the life lessons learnt.  A quarter of a century in the spotlight; she must have some witty anecdotes to share. Vanity Fair will make sure that we find out what charitable causes are close to her heart; how she priorities her time to develop her skills as a responsible parent; the contribution to society that drives her to unselfishly devote her energy to further her knowledge and understanding of homelessness/poverty/discrimination/disability and people with bad dress sense.....

Hah!  The majority of page space was given to Kate's topless poses generously peppered with glowing quotes (in bold type) from various fashionistas and around six vaguely coherent sentences uttered by Kate herself. The end result was about as revealing as my triple-pile, 180 centimetre blue beach towel.  The much-touted hidden depths were the equivalent of the film that you peel off between a boiled egg shell and the egg itself.

Muesli bars

Why do they insist on calling them 'bars' when, unwrapped, they're about the equivalent of two teaspoons of sticky oats?  Why are they 'breakfast for busy people' when people usually like more than 21 grams of solid food to satisfy their hunger?  Why are the packets 15 centimetres long, but the 'bar' only eight?

Cup cakes














Like low rider jeans, saying 'swag' and Lady Gaga, you've had your fifteen minutes of fame, cup cake.  This obsession has escalated to ridiculous levels where icing has been pooped out from a great distance and is, in fact, larger than the dry/boring/tasteless cake itself.  Maybe the next craze will just be the icing and decoration without the cupcake underneath?

How I Met Your Mother













This show is on constant re-run on one of the British second-tier freebie channels, so even when I try to avoid it, it is manages to wedge itself into my consciousness at least once a day when I'm channel surfing to find things to record for later.  The lead guy possesses the same amount of charisma that I clearly do for my land agent and the little red headed girlie who used to be in American Pie is one of the worst actresses I've ever seen. No, cuteness doesn't make up for lack of talent.  The irony doesn't escape me that Neil Patrick Harris (Dr Horrible) plays Barney who, if the world was fair, would have his own sitcom and leave the other four 'characters' in the Seasons 1-8 remainder bin.

Fingernail 'art'














Apart from endless iPhone facebook 'selfies', nothing says 'I spend too much time on myself' than fingernail 'art.'  Painting cartoons, logos, flowers, stripes or dress-matching designs onto (usually) fake fingernails also implies that the owner of such tacky travesties does very little work.  Nails with mini sequins embedded into them are not going to be much use when zipping up a small child's winter parka, popping open a long life milk box or scrubbing off the scum around the plughole.  Oh, and they don't distract the viewer from less desirable body parts either.

There. That's enough for now.  Time for a trip down to the Dog Forest with Milly.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agree with you on almost all of them. The first three blokes are of a very plain appearance. The one with the phone, too staged, too perfect.

I don't like the look of the dog. Even Corgis look better.

BBC, very disappointing when we were in England. Clearly we get the very best in Australia. BBC World Service (radio) is not bad.

Auto tune? That would be very useful to me.

Euro pastry and cakes are very disappointing. I hope their fresh bread rolls and croissants are not. Croissants, full of butter from contented French cows. Dream on?

How I Met Your Mother shows here. Never bothered with it. I have an instinct for bad tv.

Never mind decorated nails, what about the French cut? How ugly, compared to a nicely shaped nail.

JahTeh said...

Channing Tatum, ugh. I was so pleased when it was announced that one of my favourite Rosemary Sutcliffe books "The Eagle of the Ninth" was going to be made into a movie and I hope they wouldn't muck it up. I have say I watched the TV series so many times I could say the lines in my sleep. So who do you think they picked for my hero, yea, no-neck Tatum. He didn't entirely wreck the film but an american playing a roman in Celtic Britain, the pain of it all. And besides he has funny ears.

FruitCake said...

Three posts! And in the first one I even think I know who/what you are talking about.

John Cleese is irritating in every way except for the obnoxious character he plays in the Life of Brian [I think he was typecast]. And even Monty Python is over-rated.

Have never sat through casablanca or the maltese falcon or star wars.

I do remember enjoying Catcher in the Rye but would have to read it again to know what it's about.

Dr Who... like the themetune. Have no idea what it is all about.

El Guapo's new sweater is funnier in the three amigos than chevy chase.

Mags in waiting rooms are full of pictures of sellairbrities ... If I recognise even one of them I know it's a really really old mag.

Channing Tatum I have heard of but from the name thought it was a female. Go figure. The Boston Terrier is more attractive.

The nails should be subject to a carbon tax.

Hannah said...

Completely with you on not getting Ryan Gosling. He's so... bland. I've tried to watch The Notebook twice, and each time have given up no more than 15 minutes in. Bleurgh.

I have secret snarky blogposts written in my head that I can never publish, because a lot of it relates to things I see on blogs that frustrate me to tears, or are things that people I know do/engage in/have, and I don't actually want to hurt people. But I fear that one day the snark will just burst out of its own accord...

Windsmoke. said...

I bet ya feel better now that you've got those off ya chest.

Plastic Mancunian said...

Bonjour Kath,

Ryan Gosling - never seen anything with him in it. Don't want to.

Boston Terriers - I think they're cute.

Channing Tatum - just another meathead. Not seen anything he's been in either.

Zombies and Vampires - Twilight aside I LOVE vampires and Zombies. Non, Kath, non! Disagree.

Bushy beards on young blokes - totally agree.

Rihanna et al - I have to put up with that crap from Mrs PM! GRRRR - agree totally.

Kate Moss - another one for the spaceship destined for planet Tharg.

Good stuff Kath - apart from the vampires and zombies (though I would have loved to have seen the Twilight fops ripped apart by marauding zombies).

:0)

Cheers

PM

franzy said...

Guessing game: who do you think I, of all people, will be defending out of your list of hateds?

Ryan Gosling? "Yeah, but he's like, a good actor"
Nope.

Rianna? "Yeah, but she can really sing"
Nope.

I've got to spit this out: Channing "Potato Head" Tatum.
Stupid name. Stupid face. No neck. Muscled-up. Over-exposed.

But MA GAHD that dude can dance. And I mean really, REALLY dance. Before you even let that chortle escape your lips, go and see 'Magic Mike' and '21 Jump Street'.
Then add 'funny', 'self-deprecating' and 'insanely talented'.
I was bullied into watching 'Magic Mike' over a period of six months by Mele. Finally, in a weaker moment, I relented. He was funny in '21 Jump Street'. Why not?
Tell me it's not an interesting portrayal.
Tell your eyes didn't pop out of your HEAD during his solo routine.
YES.
YOU ARE READING CORRECTLY.
I, OF ALL PEOPLE, AM DEFENDING A MEATHEAD. BECAUSE HE CAN DANCE.
That's how blown away I am.
Just see that movie.

Really, it's like the time I found out that Jeremy Renner can sing like Sinatra.

Elephant's Child said...

As a grumpy old woman, I loved to hear that others suffer as well. I am with PM though - I have a weakness of vampires (hold the zombies) but would much, much rather read about them than watch them.
Another thing I am over is media going on about the weight a (nothing) celebrity has gained in shock and horror when the poor possum (and it is always a woman) may perhaps have reached a size 12. Hiss and spit was my mantra for October, was still in use in November, and sneaks into play this month as well.

diane b said...

I'm so old and boring that I don't know half of what you are talking about One also gets much more tolerant and couldn't care less attitude at my age. I have heard of Ryan Gosling only because he is a friend of my son in law (actor) and my daughter had a pic of herself with Ryan with his arm around her, on her facebook page. I had to ask, "Who's he?" I don't think she was impressed.I like apfelkuchen It sounds similar to Tarte Tatin. I had a giggle at the "Rate me " photo and you said you don't like them especially when holding ..........a phone. I thought you were going to say holding their dick, which he is.

MedicatedMoo said...

Andrew, those french cut, square nails with the white stripes are just as awful as the decorated ones. I think I've ranted about them before...

JahTeh, why pick him for a Roman..?

FruitCake - firstly I should thank you for taking the time to read all three HWH posts. Secondly, I love your tax idea for fake nails!

Hannah, release that inner snark! You may find that the people you worry that you'll offend won't even be aware that the snark concerns them.

Windsmoke, a good rant is like a dose of chocolate but without the tight pants afterwards.

PlasMan, how about you write a script featuring vampires and zombies .... and Boston Terriers? They're all yours!

Franzy, does that mean that I have to do the same 'research' (ie read and then watch 'The Notebook') for CT? I might leave it until the new year, when I'm stronger...

E-Child, where would gossip mags be without their half-yearly 'Celebs with Cellulite' issues? Or some twinkie chick today (Jennifer Lawrence) said that she was 'obese,' at what, if you look at her pictures, would be an Aussie size EIGHT.

MedicatedMoo said...

dianeb, do your daughter and SIL think that Mr Gosling is a decent bloke?

As for d**k holding, I hadn't actually noticed that!

nuttynoton said...

I agree with Diane B, no idea who most of these are. Are you tilting at windmills?? In defence of the BBC I agree the news channel is very repetitive but some of the programmes it makes are excellentand we are so lucky not to have adverts every 10 minutes!!
As for Zombies the best one was the spoof film Shaun of the dead mad!

Pandora Behr said...

Can see you're point with most of these though not to the same degree.

I LOVE CUPCAKES. Bit of a junkie, but they have to be interestingly flavoured cakes.

I'm with you with nail art - or anything where you have fake nails - pointless (though I am blessed with nice nails so I shouldn't gloat)

Agree with Franzy about Channing Tatum - he's quite funny and HE CAN SOOOOOO DANCE. Worth a rethink that one.

See, Brad Pitt is on my "I Just Don't Get It" list. Hmmm I feel a blog coming on.

Unknown said...

I don’t get the Ryan Gosling thing either, though that’s a cool picture with the blending. I wonder what that suit really looks like away from the wallpaper.

Ditto to Channing Tatum. I do enjoy vampires and werewolves when written well, though that seems to be harder and harder to source these days.

Selfies – oh god don’t get me started on selfies, I have a niece who posts them with regularity that would make an old man jealous.

Rhianna lost me when it became clear she had no idea how many syllables wee in the word umbrella.

Nail art? I'm lucky to find the time to trim my nails before they break off let alone paint fancy stuff on them.

Fen said...

Ha ha ha *high fives*

I should do a post like this some day, though it would be far too long and I would froth at the mouth. Love yours though and I agree with a hell of a lot of it!

MedicatedMoo said...

nuttynoton, I love the other BBC channels (esp 1 & 2, plus Russell Howard's Good News on 3), I just wish the news channel would contain a bit more, well, news.

Pandora, I'd love to see your Hating with Honesty list. And you can have my cupcakes if you're prepared to swap them for cheesecake or chocolate.

Kirstie, my nails rarely grow to 'long' as they split or break before that. Or, if they do get to that stage, I end up scratching myself, or Sapphire and/or getting gunk stuck under them. Yuck.

Thanks Fernstar - nice to get a high five online!

River said...

Finally I'm able to view real pages instead of a blank screen with a box saying Firefox cannot find the server at......! (two days for crying out loud!)

I agree with all your hates, but I can explain why the muesli bars are so short inside long packaging. This is so that the long, long, stream of wrapped bars has enough space between each one for the "sealing block" to stamp down between each bar and seal both ends. Without mashing the bar.
As for the cupcake craze, I agree the actual cake has been forgotten in the quest for the prettiest looking topping, which is often as tasteless as the cake now is. Looks aren't everything, we want flavour too.

mele said...

Channing Tatum - surprisingly good dancer and comedian, unfortunate mr potato head thing aside.

Ryan Gosling - watch 'lars and the real girl' and then judge him. He is a very good actor. Ignore heart throb drama.

I'm starting to think that FM radio only plays Rhianna songs. The sound of her voice sends me crazy.

Alexia said...

A great list of hates, most of which I totally agree with. No wait - all of which. I've never seen Channing Tatum (wouldn't Tatum Channing be more logical..?), but I completely trust your judgement, Kath.

This post reminds me of a 'Hate Alphabet' post which I've had in draft form for about 2 years now... I'll have to revisit and update it. There are several items on it which you have mentioned, including French cut square nails - ugly ugly!

Oh, and I've never seen "How I Met your Mother". The title was enough for me.

MedicatedMoo said...

River, I can understand the packaging issue, I just wish that the bars (and, sadly, the packaging) were larger so that I don't end up scoffing three of them and feeling like porky pig afterwards.

Mele, it sounds like .... *sigh* ....I may have to do more 'research' into the Messrs Gosling and Tatum issue.

Alexia, a hate alphabet? Brilliant idea, do it!

mele said...

Feeling very weirded out that Sam and I have both defended an ex-stripper mega millionaire actor with a ridiculous name. In our defense, at least Steven Soderbergh directed Magic Mike, the film that has made him famous!

Love this post, kath. It's good fun to complain about pop culture!

Jackie K said...

Oh my god, I agree with ALL of these. I don't see the thing with Ryan Gosling and Channing Tatum either. Don't get it!
And yes, cupcakes be gone now. Enough.

MedicatedMoo said...

Thanks Mele - I think a few pop culture whinges are my badge of honour now that I'm well into my forties and regularly embarrass Sapphire by saying, "So, what are you youngsters listening to on the streets?"

Jackie K, great minds think alike!