Sinitta

It wouldn't be the same if I didn't rant about The X Factor every year... and 2009 will be no exception. I've just been watching tonight's show and couldn't help feelling a bit incredulous about who the judges pick as their assistants. Ronan Keating (as much as I loathe him), Kylie Minogue and Will Young I can accept as being credible assistant judges. BUT Sinitta... I bet the contestants didn't even know who the hell she was!! She didn't even offer any helpful comments... just sat there nodding her head. I could have done that...! I wonder how much she got paid for appearing? Ridiculous...

Rant over.

Derren Brown... yet again!

Bloody 'ell I really don't know why I keep watching The Events. The latest and I think it is the last show had Mr Brown claiming he could work out where the ball would land on a roulette wheel by mentally calculating angles and speeds etc. (which would be the only way of predicting the outcome).

The bit that bugged me was before he did the roulette thing. He pulled two people out of the audience, placed two matchboxes in front of them, one containing a £20 note, the other empty. The two people then had two chances to switch the boxes etc. Anyway Brown said right from the beginning that the bloke from the audience would win by correctly selecting the matchbox with the £20 (hope you are still following me?) Anyway the girl won because her box had the £20 however Brown then went on to say "Unfold the £20 note and read what is on front of it" The written message was "You must give the £20 to the other person". Hang on a minute!!! I immediately thought... if the guy had selected the correct box Brown wouldn't have mentioned the message on the £20. Pathetic trick!

Then we had all this ridiculous tripe about how he just hypnotised this member of the public and "suggested" that this person withdraw £5,000 in cash for him to bet on the wheel. The cash donor didn't remotely look convincing. Then there was a surreal bit in a casino and Derren Brown lost the bet and the programme finished abruptly... weird!

Lucky this random cash donor had £5,000 he could easily withraw. I don't know I found The Events rather disappointing.

Audrey Tautou

Engrossed in an old issue of Empire Magazine I discovered a pompous interview with the actress Audrey Tautou - she was being questioned about her latest film Coco Avant Chanel.

"I wanted to find a point of view with the director which would excite me totally as an actor"

"What I can see of her in myself is the intelligence and pride..."

"When I'm old enough, I might return to playing her..."

So Audrey your arrogance is nauseating. Not only do you think you are so smart you actually believe someone is going to make another film about some unpleasant woman of no interest - and you think you will be cast to play her again. Deary, deary me Audrey.

Le rant est overt.

Flash Back to Chatsworth House

Last bank holiday weekend we took a break up in The Peak District and on the Sunday we visited Chatsworth House.

The house and gardens are extremely impressive... including the rude statues!

... of course the remake of The Wolfman starring the brilliant Benecio Del Toro was filmed there earlier this year.

Flash Forward

Hmmm... didn't like it. Seemed to be a lot like Heroes with unsympathetic characters. In fact I lost interest about half way through the first episode. Poor in comparison to the brilliant Lost.

Wasps II - The Revenge

I received a frantic call from N this afternoon... "There's a giant wasp in the kitchen!!!" So of course being the heroic husband I drove quickly home to slay the insect intruder. Bloody hell - giant wasp!! It looked like it had come from an old Godzilla film. Actually I reckon it was a hornet because it must have been a couple of inches long (5cm). Anyway armed with the wasp killing foam it received a hosing down. The soddin' thing must have clamped it's mandibles closed because it took a few goes to extricate it from the curtain.

Kitchen Roll II

This is my second rant about kitchen roll... actually it applies to other items you can buy in supermarkets as well. What am I grumbling on about I hear you say? Well during our fortnightly Tesco shopping visit I noticed that they had re-jigged the pricing on their kitchen roll. Previously it had been cheaper (per 100 sheets) to purchase the 4 roll pack rather than the 8 roll pack (rendering the 8 roll pack pointless) now it has been priced so as the 2 roll pack is cheaper than the 4 roll pack which has had its price increased beyond the 8 roll pack as well. The same price trickery had been applied to bottled water (I won't bore you with the specifics). The cheeky sh*ts deliberately keep altering their pricing so as you inadvertently buy the more expensive pack.

Jeezus... just read the above again. This is what happens when you get to 41... you become a boring b*stard.

Rant over.

More Derren Brown...

So did you pick up the image of concentric circles in your mind's eye? I didn't. I thought of the Eiffel Tower. What I want to know is why the woman selected to draw the picture that would hang all week in the Science Museum thought of something as simplistic as concentric circles. She was allowed to draw anything and could change her mind at any point - so why pick something as simple as circles? And then they select this bloke who says he thought of circles and Stone Henge... and low and behold the woman discovered she was being securely held at Stone Henge. Hmmmm...

Clothes Hangers

Okay, okay... this has got to be scraping the barrel when it comes to rants, however I have to mention it as it is something that irritates the hell out of me. Concealed in one corner of our bedroom, behind the laundry basket are a pile of clothes hangers... and every sodding time I want to grab one it is always, always, ALWAYS!!!... hooked up with 25,000 other clothes hangers and hooked up in away that even when you shake them vigorously they won't come apart.

Rant over.

Hannah Montana / Miley Cyrus

Hmmm... I must admit I know bugger all about Miley Cyrus and her alter-ego Hannah Montana. However I was gobsmacked to read that the Hannah Montana brand will be worth $1 billion by the end of the year! $1,000,000,000!!!! That is utterly ridiculous!! 3 TV series a film and a couple of records. Jeezus.

In the same article they said that my favourite actor (not) the utterly wooden Daniel Radcliffe is the most bankable actor around (creates $383 million a film). Curiously Tom Cruise and his ex-wife Nicole Kidman are the most overpaid relative to financial performance. Their last few films have bombed. Cruise generates $1.88 per $1.00 paid and Kidman is on a 1:1 ratio. Maybe they should take a pay cut?

Rant over.