Monday, July 23, 2007

And now I'm Ross Geller

There's a headline I never thought I'd write. Yet, the fact remains that it's actually true, due to the fact that today I got Sandwich Rage.

Not rage at the actual sandwich. I might be a bit hormonal at the moment, but I've not yet reached the point where I'm yelling at inanimate wheat-based items (stay tuned to see what happens over the next eight months though). I got rage at the Sandwich Maker, or more accurately, the Sandwich Maker Who Dares Pass Judgement.

Just what is so odd about ciabatta with parma ham and fresh tomato anyway? LOTS, apparently. Enough is wrong with it to make the Sandwich Maker give me a raised-eyebrow stare for ten seconds and then shout across the sandwich bar: "You eat strange foods, yes?!"

And then I shouted back about piss poor customer service and my rights to have whatever sandwich I damn well wanted, yes?!

Then I turned on my heel and slipped on a wet leaf. Tomorrow I am buying my lunch from M & S.

In other news: shut up, Orange gigs and tours advert.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Easties Awards: Part Three

Welcome back for Category #3: The Mince and Gary Award for Inane Comic Relief Storyline. Apologies for the extended absence – I had to go and buy a new awards dress in which to accommodate my new comedy breasts. Also, I’ve been struggling with this category, as EastEnders is such a desolate wasteland of misery most of the time that the comedy storylines get hoofed into the background and are over and done with before you know it. Why they can’t just hire Janice Dickinson to sit in the corner of the Vic passing loud crack-fuelled judgement on everyone I don’t know – that would be enough comedy to last me a lifetime. Anyway, here we go:

1. Ricky’s stag night

Oh, glory days. Why can’t they bring Ricky back? He was always there with a cheery word and a buffoonish expression on his face; losing spanners, incurring the wrath of Bianca and causing Frank to squeeze that bit of skin between his eyes eight times an episode. Mind you, I suppose they’ve got Gary now. Anyway: background. Rickaaay is about to marry screaming orange harpy Biancaaaaaar, and because nothing ever goes wrong in EastEnders, decides to have his stag party the night before. How wise!

Unsurprisingly, a great time was had by all until young Butcher woke up in a field in France the next day. Along with three men who anyone would want in a crisis – Phil, Grant and Nigel. Oh, what larks! Luckily, Nigel had taken GCSE French and asked a local peasant where they were (as far as I recall, Nigel’s French sounded rather similar to my dad’s on the legendary occasion where he got absolutely trolleyed in Paris and lost his hotel key; and then decided to sort out the whole fiasco by lurching up to the snooty receptionist and ask in ‘Allo ‘Allo style English: “Escooose me! Der yer ‘ave zer key?”). The peasant took pity and revealed that they were in fact in – wait for it – Kent. The day is saved! Although considering the fuss people in EastEnders make about going Up West or to the High Street, chances are that this fact caused more distress than finding out they were in St Malo or whatever.

2. Walford One Owed Freedom

Any canine who bites Ian Beale’s arse deserves a paw shake in my book. However, when this jolly event happened, thanks to the ever reliable comedy staple Wellard, Beale failed to see it that way and spent what seemed like weeks whining on about it and making his voice go all high pitched. When everyone failed to listen, or in fact care, Beale dug out his biggest Unreasonable Hat and decided that the only solution to keeping his butt bite-free was to have Wellard put down. “Nooooo!” cried the loyal audience. “He’s a much better actor than nearly everyone else on this soap!”

Luckily, the People’s Poet Gus Smith (new owner of said antisocial dog since Robbie took his acne to pastures new) and Newcomer In Need of a Storyline Deano Wicks were on the side of the viewing public, and started the unforgettable campaign WOOF, complete with T-shirts and everything. Beale got red faced and shouted, Gus banged on incessantly about dog rights, and in the end everything was resolved, as ever, by the sensible Jane, plus Peter and Lucy (aka The Woodentops). Also, in order to teach Beale that Dogs Have Feelings Too (Or Summink) they bought him his own dog, who has not been seen since.

3. Patrick and Jim, generally

I love it when EastEnders scriptwriters realize that there is so much moroseness abounding in the Square, and decide to lighten up life by getting Yolande or Dot to scamper off for three weeks to Jamaica/'to visit Michelle in Florida’ respectively, and Patrick and Jim to indulge in non stop boozing, betting and breaking of much-loved pottery products. ‘Hilarity ensues’, mostly involving Jim’s eye going wonkier and Patrick bellowing about plantains and rum at the top of his voice, until Yolande/Dot returns early and subjects them to a week of stupid punishments such as training for a marathon or manning the fruit stall. Oh, how we laugh.

And the winner is….(drumroll this week provided by Sean beating his head against the bar in protest at the lameness of this category’s nominations…)

Walford One Owed Freedom!

Well done, Wellard. Everyone knows dogs are funny. Dogs biting the hell out of Beale are even funnier, so props to you.

Next up: it’s bemused expressions at the ready for Category #4: The "Hang On, This Totally Doesn't Make Sense" Award. Which will hopefully be less of a Mick Fleetwood/Sam Fox type washout than this one.

It's a good thing we didn't book that holiday to Malaysia yet...

Alternative titles for this post included "This may explain my recent absence" and "Of course, this would happen the month I pay a year's gym membership upfront".

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Mr Sandman...get your ass to Hackney, stat

Another traditional Miss Hacksaw week involving zero blogging there. My apologies. However, I am typing this at 04.47am on Sunday morning, which is an accurate reflection of my current sleeping habits, so it's all I can do to actually move from the sofa each day, let alone log onto Blogger and try to be amusing about things. With any luck at some point today I'll score some Valium or something and the blog will be back in play soon enough.

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Easties Awards: Part Two

Welcome back, funsters! Before I start, I should point out that this category has been re-named The Miss Hacksaw Award for Characters So Unworkable That Decent Actors Come Across As Useless, So Don’t Sue Me.

1. Laura Beale

Poor Laura. As if life hadn’t dealt her enough duff hands in life, what with having to nanny Beale’s whinging kids, then marrying Beale, then it all going horribly wrong, having a paternity to-do over her moon headed child, and finally being pushed down the stairs to a long overdue death; and now she’s the victim of a snarky nomination here, thanks to Dandelion (round of applause!)

What started out as middle of the road, eye rolling acting at Beale’s various scrapes turned, over the years, into gurning parody – in the end involving nothing apart from stumping across the Square with a buggy shouting the odds at Beale; or sitting in a pile of pooey nappies staring bug-eyed at an empty jar of Cow & Gate pureed spinach. Murder at the hands of Janine Butcher was welcome relief for those watching.

2. Jean Slater

I hate Jean Slater. If she’s not sat in an armchair with her knees under her chin, rocking back and forth and muttering about how “they” are trying to get her; she’s throwing Sugar Puffs at the wall while screaming at the top of her lungs; or getting way too overexcited about the prospect of a pot of tea and not letting anyone get a word in edgeways. And the voice sends icicles down my spine.

Her scripts are pretty much identical every time she rolls up, which is around every four months when the plot needs a little bit of help. MacGuffin, thy name is Jean Slater! Now take that Prozac and stop the damn yelling.




3. Rebecca/Chloe/Spawn of Sonia and Martin

“Can we go and feed the ducks with Granny Pau-line?”

“No! No, we can’t, because you’re going in the cellar until you learn to stop over pronouncing every vowel, stop glaring at everyone with that devil child stare, and cut that fringe. Although if my storylines had been half as confusing as yours have been over the years I’d probably be trying to get sacked as well. However, I don’t care. Be gone.”

4. Peggy

It’s rare for someone in a soap to be contracted to only use four facial expressions (Outraged; Blissful; Sly; Disappointed) and use only four phrases day in, day out (“You’re a Mitchell!/You ain’t a Mitchell!”/”It’s all abaht the family!” or variations thereof; “Fwee dwinks fer all!”; “Get aaahhta my pub!”; “Pat Evans ain’t getting the better of me, just you wait!”) Babs Windsor rocks, but the character of Peggy just isn’t given enough to work with here. I expect a Mitchell to be on me doorstep within the hour brandishing a crowbar.

5. Carly Wicks

I quite liked the actress who played Carly when the character first arrived in the Square. She was a voice of reason in between all the KEVIN “Parklife” WICKS! and Deano hair-tearing and japestering. However, things have gone a bit swiftly downhill for young Carly, and now all her scenes just involve her either downing vodka out of pint glasses in the Vic, falling over, screaming at family members, rolling her eyes and screwing up her face in outrage. The term one-trick pony comes to mind, which is shame because I quite like the actress whenever she’s on Soccer AM.

So concludes the nominations. And the winner is (drumroll courtesy of Garry with a couple of darts on the bar….)

It’s Rebecca/Chloe/Spawn! Um, I feel a bit bad about handing this out to a child who has not yet been to Sylvia Young or the Poor School like everyone else in EastEnders, but it is unfortunately well deserved. The staring eyes, the stilted delivery, the maddening mispronunciation of the name Pauline, and of course the general aura of being spawned from Satan himself; the farewell was excruciatingly overdue.
Next up, it’s less hate and more fun with Category #3: The Mince and Gary Award for Inane Comic Relief Storyline! Oh, the wacky japesters.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Um...

Sorry if I'm being a dense jackass here, but what does the protective skirt on Tampax Compak actually do? I can't work it out, and the ad explains nothing. I could Google it, but I'd rather moan about it on here.

Easties Awards: Part One

Welcome to the Queen Vic, your venue for this evening’s glittering awards ceremony! The bar’s stocked; the tables have been cleaned FOR ONCE, SHIRLEY; Jim’s pissed and his eye’s gone even more wonky than usual; Pat and Yolande are having an evils contest; Sean’s eyeing up some totty and making Miss Hacksaw jealous (shut up); and Genghis hasn’t even got to the spread yet.

Thanks to the wonderful Ms Baroque and Dandelion for their nominations – quite a fantastic selection. Dandelion’s in particular reached back into the heyday of EastEnders, and unfortunately not even Wikipedia can help me out with some of them. Still, much like EastEnders itself, I’ll bluster through and hope it all comes out in the wash (with Dot’s fag ash all over it.)

On with the awards!
These are going to be done over a number of posts, as chances are proceedings will be interrupted by a fight and the QV bust being swung at someone.

Category #1: Silliest Brookside-esque Storyline

EastEnders is great at stupid storylines. Isn’t that the whole point of soaps? Of course, they’ve not reached Brookside stringing-up-paedos-in-the-street levels yet, but give it time. In order for an EE storyline to reach the dizzy heights of being completely insane it must tick a number of boxes, including rampaging on for at least six months, having more twists and turns than a twisty turny thing, getting the inept Walford coppers involved and Pat doing some amateur sleuthing, preferably with the hindrance of a comedy sidekick such as Billy or Genghis.

Nominations for this category include:

1. The nobbling of the annoying Saskia with an ashtray, subsequent breakdowns of those involved, boring court case and too many scenes featuring Paul Nicholls rotting in prison wearing a netball sash.

2. Max and Stacey. Balding shyster who can’t keep his plonker in his pants ignoring his hot up-for-it wife in favour of gobby vodka swilling teenager caked in Collection 2000. Completely unbelievable, and it’s not even over with yet.

3. Dawn Swann pretending to be Ian Beale’s wife for sinister, Masonic Lodge type reasons that I can’t even remember, meeting smooooth, strangely hairlined Rob, shagging his brains out, getting pregnant, finding out the smoooothster is married to the very nice new GP, very nice new GP finding out about that her patient is knocked up by her husband, going completely batshit crazy, threatening to perform a caesarean with a butter knife and getting taken away to a bouncy room by those inept coppers. Then we all had to suffer the insufferable Carly Wicks singing songs from Annie during the labour. I felt like I’d been in labour for nine months after sitting through this storyline.

4. Mental, wife beating Owen kidnapping dorky tween Squiggle (sorry, sorry, Libby – we don’t want a Button style strop on our hands) and essentially trying to kill her, for reasons that even after a trip to Wikipedia I am unsure of. As ever, the inept coppers eventually turned up after what seemed like years of failing to get involved and the baddie was arrested. They all lived happily ever after, except for Libby who then had to move in with KEVIN “Parklife” WICKS!, and Owen, who is presumably now spending his days playing Boggle with various inmates in the House of Batshit.

And the winner is (drumroll please while Peggy replenishes various glasses of Unspecific)……..

It’s Dawn, Rob and May! It kind of had to be, seeing as the episode with the threatened caesarian was the one that inspired this glittering ceremony. To quote, er, me: “[it] included all the traditional soap stalwarts of hysteria, insanity, tears, blood and scalpels.” Starting off as a comedy storyline based around Beale’s relentless social climbing and pottering off on various tangents along the way (including an obligatory real girlfriend turns up, charms the pants off everyone and Beale looks like an arse scene) it suddenly turned itself on its head and viewers were left scratching their heads wondering why all this blacking-one’s-own-eye capery had been going on if May and Rob had been in cahoots all along. Jimmy Corkhill would be proud.

Next up: Category #2: The Phil Daniels Award for Shoddy Acting!

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Dammit! (Jack Bauer voice)

So, I just spent about an hour typing a really long post that encompassed all my favourite subjects including EastEnders, Kiefer and Red Stripe and Blogger totally ate it. Why do I not write these things in Word first, save them and then copy over to the Blogger template? I have no idea. I'm blaming this lack of sensible procedure on the fact that I AM QUITTING SMOKING and am high on these Niquitin lozenge things which have made the inside of my mouth tingle which is a really weird feeling.

I'm also blaming the lozenges for the fact that I sat transfixed in front of the concert for Diana for about four and a half hours until the Hubbo came back from a stag do in Newquay and pleaded with me to watch something normal instead. So we watched EastEnders. Which was predictably insane.

Speaking of, apologies for the lack of awards ceremony last week. Beale double booked himself and you can't have a do in the Vic without a plate of Marmite sandwiches and a cheese hedgehog. People need food to soak up all that Churchills. Otherwise there might be a fight or something else equally unthinkable.

Oh, he so did not. I spent the week drinking, shopping and going to the gym and neglected to do any blogging at all. Sorry. The ceremony will take place tomorrow, so make sure you stop by! Peggy's promised "fwee dwinks fer all!"

Oh yeah, and someone got here by googling "hot polish builder eastenders". I sometimes think I must be watching a different programme to some people.