Heels! Heels!

I was recently bought a pair of purple wedges with a platform and a straw-like heel. I'm told that having just the one colour on a shoe is not up-to-date, as a venture in my favourite shoe shops tell me.

So no, unfortunately they aren't these lovely structural Dior catwalk beauties but I could never walk in these anyway - phantom wedge or not. But does anyone else have a problem that heels are too difficult to walk in? Some fit snugly when you try them on and so you think that you'll be walking gracefully down the street in a pair of beauties.

But then you realise that the cobbled street outside probably isn't going to help your balance and you don't want to be falling over constantly like some klutz so you mournfully put the shoes back. I possess only two pairs of true heels and one of them might not count. Firstly, a tenner's worth of black patent Primark (yeah, yeah) courts with four inches of heel and the second are a reduced-price pair of Office black suede ankle boots with a funky round-the-foot zip and a three-inch heel, no platform on either.

The ankle boots have been recently worn but that was the first time since going to see Neon Neon in November where I danced so much that my feet swelled up and looked rather abnormal. I can't even remember the last time I wore the courts.

I think my point is that wedges are the way to go - I can walk in mine comfortably (but without pop-socks, they make my ankles too slippery!) and without the fuss of heels. Heels are now renamed hells. And I don't care what people say about wedges making your legs and ankles look fat - at least I won't be injuring myself 24/7.

Japan: Still Hidden

Oh God, how disappointed am I? I've been pretty seriously ill over the last few weeks and the one of the only things that has kept me mildly sane is the "Hidden Japan" season on Beeb 4. Now, when they said "season" did they mean a good few weeks jam-packed with programming? Like bells they did!

What we actually got was three hour-long documentaries and a couple of films shown late at night. That was it. Seriously. "In Search of Wabi-Sabi" featured the brother of Louis Theroux making slightly embarrassed faces in maid cafes and struggling to keep up with the intensive rituals of monks. Next was "Fish! A Japanese Obsession" which was a little more interesting (oddly, as I have no real interest in fish besides eating a bit of salmon now and again). This examined everything from the eating of fish to the breeding of Koi Carp and fishing for points (hey, now I know where they got the idea for Zelda fishing from!). Finally there was the illuminating "Japan: A Story of Love and Hate" which followed the life of 50-something Naoki and his 20-something girlfriend Yoshie as they battled against poverty - as he puts it "this isn't special poor, this is normal poor in Japan." I guess you just had to see it to believe it - I knew that Japanese houses and apartments were small but this one really took the mickey.

These 3 shows coupled with a Japanese word of the day that seemed to poke a little fun at the Japanese terms for phrases we had here was all I got. I've had a lifetime fascination with Japan and this is all the Beeb are giving me? I thought that they might explore manga and anime, look deeper into the weird idiosyncratic shops and rituals that they have, even explore the language of Japanese.... anything more than we got!!

Ah well, I guess I'll just have to wait until the next time they show anything mildly interesting about the country.

Gastronomic: Part Two

Ah, what a difference a week makes! No sooner had I watched in awe at "Heston's Victorian Feast" that I find out that Mr. Blumenthal's restaurant had been closed down because 400 customers complained of feeling ill!

So cue the jokes in the second of the series - a Medieval Feast. At some point during the initial history part, the Black Death was mentioned and suddenly from the corner I heard "Is that what you're gonna be serving in your restaurant then?"

It was funny, if in slightly bad taste (but then again I laugh at the strangest of things). But alas, no Black Death was served. Instead for appetisers there was Meat Fruit. Yep, meat disguised cleverly and convincingly like fruit. The plums were the least appetising (made out of an ingredient you're likely to see on something like I'm A Celebrity... 'nuff said). But the parma ham grapes sounded nice, I would've eaten that.

Oh, but the starter was vile! Blood sucking lamprey! Urgh! Even the guests couldn't stomach it - the raw head and tail were put either side of a griddled middle piece with the spinal cords of the little monsters fried and served as a garnish. Blech. Blood sauce as well. Double blech.

The main course looked at sounded nice. Pigeon pie baked the Medieval way. I.e. inedible crust but everything else about it seemed quite nice. At least until I realised how it was going to be presented. There is a showpiece for every one of these installments, and this week it was four and twenty blackbirds baked live in a pie. Only Heston replaced them with pigeons since blackbirds are now endangered. So, crust baked using some industrial equipment (steamrollers, cement mixers etc - it was one heck of a big pie!) he started putting the pigeons under the crust. When it came out and the lid was removed the birds flew everywhere.... and the dinner was taken out from the big pie. I don't know about anyone else but I wouldn't want to be eating a pie that's been near any sort of bird, let alone a pigeon (what if it hadn't emptied its bowels in a little while - actually one of the birds did on one of the guests' heads).

Dessert was clever but incredibly messy. Edible tablewear served with pork pie. Yeah, pork pie. Not real pork you'll understand but faux-mincemeat made from rasberry sorbet and vanilla ice-cream, strained through a grid and solidified with liquid nitrogen. Aha, really. Still, I wouldn't want to eat the crust which appeared to be a real pork-pie crust instead of a sweet treat.

Ooh, I can't wait for the exploding cockatrice next week!

Gastronomic

This is an image of some normal food - to me this looks like a little bit of steak with some mash potato or pastry placed on the top with a tomato and cream sauce (ooh, getting hungry!)

Now imagine this - absinthe and strawberry jelly, turned luminescent green and wobbling backwards and forwards thanks to the help of... four stripped down vibrators. Yes, really. But then, what would you really expect from pioneering yet insanely strange gastronome Heston Blumenthal?

The jelly was just the dessert in his show, Heston's Victorian Feast, based on the Mad Hatter's Tea Party and other elements from Alice In Wonderland. The appetiser was based on the Drink-Me Potion that turned Alice small. So he managed to find some way to separate six pink fluids, flavoured like pineapple, burnt toast, turkey (and I shockingly can't remember the others), and keep them separate in a strange shaped glass so that it wasn't a taste disaster. But still, surely creating mock turtle soup that is made like a cup of tea is going a bit far? Well, apparently not: for the main course there came an entirely edible garden. Everything from the soil to the pebbles was designed to be eaten. And that included a variety of insects such as worms, locusts and wasps filled with a tomato paste using a syringe.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this show though was the fact that he mixed the production and eating of the food with little interjections about the history of the different foods, showing where his inspiration had come from. It was quite fascinating seeing what the Victorians ate, who ate it and what it believed it would do to them and society. For instance, in the hard economic times of the Victorian age, insects were suggested as food because they were in vast supply in the country! Wonderful bites of trivia!

Oh, everyone who is able MUST tune in next Thursday to watch his Medieval Feast - it promises to be the same mix of OTT gastronomy and informative nuggets!

Confessions Of A Shopaholic/ He's Just Not That Into You

Hmm, so against every moral film bone in my body I have seen both "Confessions of a Shopaholic" and "He's Just Not That Into You" in the past couple of weeks. And I am afraid to say that I actually enjoyed "Confessions"! Shock horror!

So here's the reason why... okay, I don't have a reason why - Rebecca is a silly clothes-obsessed woman that is daft and in massively in debt. Hmmm, nice portrayal of women there Miss Kinsella... Still, it's light and frothy and since I was feeling so awful that day Isla Fisher's performance actually put a smile on my face. And I deny anyone to say that the Miami dancing scene isn't hilarious - the woman sitting next to me (not my friend, a person I didn't know) was in so much of a kink that she nearly keeled over on the floor. It's quite sweet as well - she does sell all of her clothes collection to pay off her debts and prove to the man that she loves that he means more to her tan Prada and Gucci (although they were an odd match... he wasn't anything like her at all!)

So then on to "He's Just Not That Into You", which is not nearly as insightful as it believes it is - after all, doesn't nearly every girl realise that boys hitting you really means that they hate you rather than like you? Well, this is the "revealing" segment that the film begins on. The stories with Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Connoly in them are quite tedious and predictable, but Gigi's story is quite funny (I liked her, she was a little bit like me), and Drew Barrymore is very likeable. Actually, she probably didn't get enough screen time. All of the stories were linked, so you had to work out who was seeing who and manipulating who etc.

The best part, actually, was after the little titles introducing the various segments of the storyline (when he's not calling you, when he's not sleeping with you etc.) Here, semi-known celebs such as that woman who plays Angela Petrelli in Heroes (know what I mean about semi-known now?) reveal some little stories that link to the title of that particular segment. This was the most inventive part of the filming. This was the only part that felt more independent movie-maker rather than big-bucks Hollywood rom-com.

Still, both films are enjoyable as part of a night out - best enjoyed chilled with friends on a gloomy day (rain, depression, whatever) and preferrably with a bag of popcorn to chow down on!

Lazy Post... But I Think You'll Laugh

Why is this post going to be really lazy but funny? Well, this little bold bit is the only piece that I'M actually writing, and the rest, including the pic, has been nicked from the Empire Blog - I sent this to my mum and she agreed. Hopefully you'll laugh and nod at the same time too!

I am, I think it’s fair to say, what you could describe as a cinema fascist. For me a trip to the local multiplex isn’t so much a night of enjoyment but an endless litany of irritations, injustices and insults perpetrated against my person by the general public. I suppose it’s an inevitable side effect of spending the better part of a decade being coddled by private studio screenings where we’re presented with nibbles, wine and the occasional Pret sandwich tray.

Such screenings, where you're often one of only a handful present, have become the norm in my mind, so you can imagine the horror when I’m occasionally dropped headfirst into the howling, sticky sea of degradation and depravity that is your average fleapit performance. Frankly, it makes me want to have a shower. And then kill everyone in the room. And then have another one to wash the gore off my hands. An overreaction? Possibly, but why, I ask you, do people go to the cinema when they clearly have no interest in actually watching the movie?

But I’m getting off track. Having been scarred by years of public cinemagoing as a civilian before finally finding solace at the bosom of Empire, i think it's time that something was done to improve the cinemagoing experience. I propose that we all unite to draw up a list of cinemagoing commandments (enforceable by some kind of nasty biblical torture), to which anyone viewing a film in a public place must adhere. It should go something like this:

1. Thou shalt not have stupid trendy hair that sticketh up and obscureth my view

All cinema patrons should be required, on pain of buzz cut, to sport a sensible haircut whereby the hair itself stays flat upon the scalp. Regardless of how much you think you look like that muppet from McFly, I do not need to spend half the film trying to peer past congealing spires of hair gel thank you so very much. The same goes for headwear – caps off when you sit down. And no, I don’t care if it’s street or cool or you’ve left the tags on to make it look like you stole it.While not a commandment in its own right, a sub-directive of this should be something along the lines of thou shalt not sit bolt upright unlest thou sufferest from some kind of chiropractic condition. Headwear or no, cinema seat backs are high for a reason: you’re meant to slouch. This is in part so you can enjoy the slobbish act of watching movies to the full but also so half the movie isn’t projected onto the back of your bloody head. Heed. Doon.

2. Thou shalt not shout encouragement to yonder protagonists

What’s wrong with you? It’s a movie. It’s an entirely one-directional experience and Matt Damon neither needs nor is in any way able to hear your vocal support. If you’re American then you recieve a grudging free pass on this as it seems to be an evolutionary trait caused by generations of watching Jerry Springer, which you're all now powerless to resist. The rest of you keep it zipped, okay?

3. Thou shalt not use sugar-coated chocolates as rudimentary weapons of war

A year ago I was forced to sit through a public performance of Spider-Man 3 (which was unpleasant enough to begin with) only to be struck squarely in the head by some kind of heat-seeking M&M. All I can say is down with this sort of thing! Perhaps I’m still scarred by an incident at the Harrow Granada in the late 80s when some muscled gorilla called Len came up and accused the 11-year-old me of doing something similar. I hadn’t, but that didn’t stop him from using my head as a knuckle warmer. The fact that his girlfriend later dragged him over to apologise did not make me feel a great deal better.

4. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's cupholder

Your bag of Minstrels does not outrank mine and you will not use the cupholders on both sides of your seat no matter how many snack food items you’re juggling. If you go both ways then some poor bugger is going to end up with a beverage perched precariously on his lap and that’s just an accident waiting to happen. Cup goes in holder, sweets go in lap, it’s the natural order of things and woe betide any who seek to challenge it.

5. Thou shalt not skulk around the back of the screen wearing night vision goggles

Are you in Splinter Cell? No? Then what on Earth are you doing? You look like a tit. Yes, I’m aware that the threat of movie piracy hangs above society like a headsman’s axe and if Harry Potter 7 ends up on the Internet before it's released in the cinema than the whole of reality will implode on itself, but do we really need the bloody SAS glaring at us throughout the feature? What are they going to do if they catch someone anyway? Drag them outside and put two in the back of their head? I’ve got a word for you, it’s called OVERKILL.

6. Thou shalt not use the lavatory whilst the feature is in progress

No, I don’t care if you’ve got a weak bladder, a nervous stomach or you’re on bloody dialysis, there is no excuse for getting up in the middle of the film and thereby forcing your entire row to do the same while you shuffle off to the loo. Just sit there, hold it in and next time don’t drink that four gallon bucket of Coke you indulgent fool.

7. Thou shalt not accept calls from thine drug dealer during the film

Admittedly this one’s a tad specific but it’s nevertheless something I witnessed during a Sunday matinee screening of Fallen (don’t ask) in 1998. Glossing over the imprudence of such an act given that the whole of special branch could have been downing popcorn in the back row, it’s also extremely annoying! That goes for any kind of phone conversation. If it rings you grab frantically at the offending pocket and fumble apologetically until you manage switch the thing off then sit really still for the next minute while hoping no one is staring at you. You do NOT even THINK about answering the accursed thing and ‘catching up’.

8. Thou shalt not purchase individually wrapped sweets on pain of torture

Anything that rustles is enough to provoke a sound beating but to intentionally purchase confectionary that requires crunching, crackling paper before every single mouthful is tantamount to a war crime. Do it at your peril and I’ll see you in The Hague.

9. Thou shalt not talk amongst thyselves no matter how boring thou findest the movie

Just don’t, okay? If you’re not enjoying it then just leave – quietly. I once sat behind two people who nattered all the way through Schindler’s List. It’s about genocide for god’s sake, have some bloody respect. If I told Ian Freer you’d talked through one of Steven’s movies he’d have branded something I can't print on this website across both your bloody foreheads.Also, while we're on the subject of noise, I'd like to add another sub-clause: though shalt not bray like a donkey. f it’s a comedy then by all means feel free to laugh – it’s actually encouraged. Do not, though, howl like some kind of lovesick baboon, thus eclipsing all other sound that’s not currently broadcasting above 20 decibels. This is especially infuriating when what you’re laughing at isn’t actually supposed to be funny, or at least not funny enough to warrant Fanta dribbling from your nostrils.

10. Thou shalt not sit thyself next to or in front of me if the cinema is half empty

This is absolutely non-negotiable. I am not your mother and thus will at no point hold your hand during the movie if you get scared. Bearing this in mind you will not attempt to sit next to me, a complete stranger, when there are plenty of non-adjacent seats elsewhere. You will instead adhere to a minimum three seat buffer around my person at all times unless the cinema is sufficiently crowded that this proves impossible. Likewise you will not place your presumably non-translucent self directly between me and the screen unless all seats outside the direct field of my vision are currently occupied. Should you neglect to follow this directive then I reserve the right to place hard metal objects in any space around me that I see fit, regardless of whether said space is occupied by a part of your anatomy.

I'm sure there are more but it's traditional to stop at ten so I'll leave any further additions up to you. Go forth and preach the gospel! Let us spread the word among the heathens and turn the multiplexes back into the hallowed cathedrals of entertainment they were meant to be. And yes, feel free to burn any heretics who seek to defy you. Amen.

Axed. Again

Argh - why do the network executives always axe my favourite shows? It must be to annoy me - they know I'm watching and think it'll be funny to get rid of the programme and watch my reaction.

But, in all honesty, I'm not too surprised that Pushing Daisies has been chopped after two series. Actually, I'm very surprised that it got this far! It's a technicolour, strange, hyperactively upbeat show about death and detectives with weird twists, an over-eager narrator and characters so weird you really couldn't have made it up. Still, I like it. I like it because of these elements, all baked into a blueberry pie!

Well, it's just so uplifting really. I like the fact that for once I'm not watching a show that's dark and filled with realism. Pushing Daisies is away with the fairies fun - and it should remain that way to put a smile on peoples' faces for a while to come. But then I accept that not everyone is like me, and not everyone enjoys strange fun like this. In fact, I can't think of many in my company at least.

Ratings... I hate that word!