Mitchell and Webb

Recently I've been watching a lot of British comedy; varying from the '90s classic of Gimme Gimme Gimme to the more recent joy of The Inbetweeners.
Basically, every so often, I'm going to post a few videos from a British comedian (/comedy duo) that I like. I expect most people to know of the people I post about, I'm hardly raving about any obscure comedians. I accept my mainstream-ness. I just want to build up a collection of blog posts full of things that make me, and hopefully you, laugh :). If you don't know about whoever it is I'm chatting about then that's all good, I could've introduced your face to something you may enjoy. Wahoo, winners all round. I'm obviously not going to go over their whole life's work in any of the blog posts by the way. You have wikipedia, use it.

Mitchell & Webb

Both of these videos are from That Mitchell and Webb Look. The first one is of the Green Clarinet Man (from series 1, episode 3), the second is a Sunday Afternoon (from series 3, episode 6). I can't explain how much I love Robert Webb in the first sketch. It's brilliant. (They've done a lot of "That Mitchell and Webb..." stuff by the way. I'm not going to list it all, I'm sure you can use Google...you're smart people.)





Here's a couple from Peep Show (YouTube won't allow me to have this embedded). Also, brilliant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XveT0dAznSk&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkrGOhLJuhY&feature=related

David Mitchell's Soapbox



David Mitchell also does a Radio 4 show called The Unbelievable Truth and a show that was on BBC television called The Bubble. Both Mitchell and Webb have newspaper columns too, both of which are usually quite funny. David Mitchell's column & Robert Webb's column.

Series 4 of That Mitchell & Webb Look is currently on the BBC.
Robert Webb is currently narrating Young, Dumb and Living Off Mum, which is joyous for many reasons.

If you know of any comedians similar to Mitchell and Webb that I may like then drop me a comment. I'm always hunting for new material (not in a Keith Chegwin way).
(God I hope people get that Keith Chegwin reference, googlenews it if you didn't)

Summer Reading

The first book I've read for summer was 'Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism' by Natasha Walter.

I think this book is one of my favourites of all time. It's so eye-opening. The book is really recent too (it was only published this year), so it has lots of recent events in it. The book is divided in to two parts; The New Sexism and The New Determinism. The first half discusses the rise of the 'glamour' model, the porn industry, sexual partners, expectations and choices. The second half discusses the rise of the princess (oh Disney...), gender myths and the stereotypes that our society accepts and promotes.

"in order to challenge this culture in which feminine stereotypes remain so restrictive for women, there is no need to deny the pleasures of femininity, no need to retreat into a caricatured feminism of drab clothes, sexless pursuits and dour political correctness. All women can enjoy the positive aspects of our femininity, whether those pleasures are physical or emotional, but we do need much greater vigilance and much greater solidarity to ensure these pleasures do not become a trap for us. [...] If we move away from biological determinism we enter a world with more freedom, not less, because then those behaviours traditionally associated with masculinity and femininity could become real choices for each individual." (Walter, 230: 2010)

Childhood.

Today I was going through lots of pictures from my childhood. I don't do this often, as I'm a rather emotional person and my childhood was quite an emotion filled thing.

(The bottom right pictures are photo gold [click to enlarge]).

I still make collages and then show them to my Dad. I'm 20 now. I don't think I'll ever grow-up, not really.

Stop tarring people with that brush, jeeeez.

'Their gayness is being shoved in my face"

I never really get what people mean when they say 'I don't mind it, just don't shove it in my face', when they're referring to gay couples on television. What does that even mean? Okay, so I understand that not everybody has settled in to the idea that gay people are JUST people, I understand that, the whole 'it's a different generation' thing. However, it annoys me when a gay couple are mentioned or appear on TV and people assume they're literally having all this gayness shoved in their face (seriously, I'm not even joking, I hear comments like this far too often). I mean, what, really? Gayness? I don't even get how someone's 'gayness' could offend you. Especially when they're just chatting, just like friends, no mention of their sexuality (but obviously because they're gay then everything they're doing is in a 'gay way' *rolls eyes*), their gayness is clearly being shoved right in your face, yeah and when straight couples kiss or chat then straightness is being shoved in your face, yeah sure...that's how it works. Urgh. No. Please hesitate to speak again under you realise what a double-standard lover of a fool you are :).

I'm not racist, but...

I'm not even bothering to have many a sentence for this one (maybe...you know I get carried away in thought). Blackpool is a white town (and by white I mean Caucasian, not cocaine, although it depends, if you thought cocaine you can have a point anyway), it has a lot less ethnic minorities than its residents would like to think. However, my gosh is it full of racists. All I really have to say to the dear residents of Blackpool and the surrounding area is, please stop hating people you never come in to contact with, also stop treating them as if they're all some kind of mega cultural robotic force here to tear down your pretty white empire. Stop wanking off to your own hatred and get a hobby (or just read a book, a good book, the sort without pictures).

You go to uni? Urgh.

This is driving me INSANE. If another person looks down on me because I go to uni then I may just hit them with my Giddens' (chunkiest book, ever). I really do not understand the thought process behind not-going-to-uni-snobbery. I know I'm not the only one who has had to listen to this shitty snobbery, quite a few of my friends have had it too, not just from the odd randomer, but from family members *shocked gasp*. I know, ridiculous right? The people who are meant to be supportive, end up jumping on their 'I'm fine and I didn't go to uni" bandwagon. I am so over hearing that sentence. I'm not implying you're not fine, I never doubted for a second that you're not fine, jeez, calm down. It's not like I'm going to uni so I can be like HA, I HAVE A DEGREE, FUCK YOU EVERYONE ELSE. I mean yeah, that part is pretty cool, but I'm doing it because it's the only way I can do the job I want to do (which is be a teacher, and quite frankly, is a nice job. I'd quite like to be thanked for doing this degree. Okay, maybe not thanked, but ya know, not called a snob for doing something that's going to help others). Just because you're fine without your degree, doesn't mean I would be. Would people stop tarring everyone with the same brush, jeeez.

In fact, I think that line goes for this whole blog.

WOULD PEOPLE STOP TARRING EVERYONE WITH THE SAME BRUSH, PLEASE.

A-levels + Picture Whores = Sixth Form

Yep, a poncey reminiscing blog, just after I've turned 20. You knew it was coming.

It's very weird to think I've been at university for as long as I was at college. College seemed so important, and it was in many way, but uni has been mental. Okay, so maybe mental isn't the right word (I need to find a new adjective), but it's been very, well...character developing. This is good though, I'm definitely more comfortable with myself than I ever have been, not so comfortable I want to wear jogging bottoms in public. God no, I'm not that comfortable, that's like, weird comfortable, I hope never to be that comfortable. Anyway, let's not get on to people and clothes that shouldn't be worn in public, I could go on forever, and although it'd probably be humorous, it's not what this blog was intended to be, no being funny for this blog (probs).

Right, back to my story, I got the bus to meet Rampley in town and she was wearing a blue and white polka-dot top, and I was wearing a blue and white polka-dot dress, we have similar hair and are of similar height. We looked ridiculous walking around town (this is all too common an occurrence). We went for lunch in a little place in town called Cupcake. We did the usual chat and then I realised it'd been four years since we first met. This is weird, I always think of college friends as being my recent group of friends. This has made me feel a little old.

However, whilst I'm remembering how much of a twat I was in college (Okay, I wasn't a twat, but 'then me' would have annoyed 'now me', therefore I class myself as a twat. Although, many things annoy me, this isn't the time to get into this...) here are pictures of me in college (16/17 years old), oh god this will be awful, but I need to re-live the pain.

I leave you with this image, 17 year old me, being an absolute douche.

Turning 20.

For my 20th birthday (in the day time), we went to a place called 'Potter In'. It was so relaxing. The pictures above are what we painted. It was so nice to just do something chilled out after all that time of exams and awful stressness.

This was my tea cup after it'd been in the kiln :).

We did also venture in to Kenilworth, going for a lovely pub dinner, which made a nice change to the usual Italian/Indian choice of food. Then we went home with our goodies from Waitrose and watched Sleeping Beauty. Such a lovely chilled out birthday.

Good friends, good times.

Dissertation ramblings (because I've passed second year, woo)

My final year of uni will mean having to do a dissertation. I have a general focal point - the sexualization of stuff (I'll explain what stuff is in a minute) - and I know I have 10,000 words, but I'm very unsure what to write about. 

The things I want to write about (...and how this is impossible)

I want to write about so many things, but obviously I can't write about too much, as it would be mean my dissertation lacked depth. Boo to that. Some of things I want to mention in my dissertation (but probably won't ever get round to most of them) are...

- Sexualization of commodities (the whole 'Sex Sells' idea)

- Sex as a path to adulthood (which would also mean looking at the social construction of childhood).

- Critical analysis of Foucault and his whole 'history of sexuality' work (/malarky, because he never looks at the gendered body).

- Sexism and society.

- Problems that sexual liberation has led to. This would probably involve the issue of ageing, moral panics and child sexualization.

I originally wanted to focus on the sexualisation of commodities idea and the problems that have occurred due to the sexual liberation. Now I've just written that sentence I've thought of another thing I could write about; the problem of sexual liberation and what it means for women and feminism. SEE, this is why I never get anything done. My mind is constantly thinking and adding more to the crap I've already thought. Part of me thinks I should just focus on all the problems of it, not really cheery, but probably really interesting. I really have no idea.

This wasn't a fun blog, soz. I'll work on being cool(ish) again. On a brighter note, I'VE PASSED SECOND YEAR (I haven't been told my grade yet, they're making us wait until Monday, bitches). 

By the way, for those of you that read this blog and do not follow wif da google (as I know you exist, *points at nearly all best friends*) you can actually leave comments as one hath changed the settings so any old fool can comment (literally). Yes yes.

Now back to writing mini ramblings on Twitter. I need a life.

I like your face.

Shit jokes.

It was my birthday yesterday (I will blog about this when I can be arsed, I am far too tired right now) and Mark got me this card.

I can't even explain how funny I found it. I am that person you buy shit joke cards for. Remember those CGP books we had in high school and college? The jokes at the bottom of those were AMAZING. Obviously everyone else in the class thought they were shit, but I appreciate a shit joke. Some of them weren't even jokes, they just made me giggle. It was quite embarrassing when people already thought I was a bit of a nutter. I have my A2-level Sociology CGP book with me and I just had a quick gander through it, there are some right gems. (I will write two because you'll hate me for making you read such shite [in your opinion, bitches]).

"Lots of religions don't condone sects before marriage" HA. Brilliant.

"What about the free sample?" (on a page about research sampling). Haaaa.

This is a part of me I should probably keep a secret due to it being really weird and probably not socially acceptable.

I will leave you now with a slightly funny thing I heard earlier.

There is a sofa shop, it's called Sofa King. It's tag line for its shop is "Our sofas prices are Sofa King low."

LOVE IT.

(If anyone ever finds a book of shit jokes, tell me. I'm totally there).