Best Thing This Week - FAIL!

The Only Way is Essex gang

I was so excited for The Only Way is Essex Christmas Special. I started watching the show on the advice of Vicky (who runs the fabulous Frenchy's Beauty Boutique which you should really check out) and was quickly, deeply addicted. I realize that it is similar in a lot of ways to The Hills or maybe a Real Housewives of Somewhere franchise but there was something deeply satisfying about the trashiness of well off people not really working and arguing about relationships. Maybe it was the thick Essex accents which I found difficult to understand which added to the exoticness of the locale. Or, the obsession with spray tans, vajazzling and various beauty treatments that kept me sitting in front of my computer for all 10 episodes. And when I heard there would be a Christmas special (or, the Essexmas special), I was way too excited.

Harry

Now it wasn't a complete fail, it just wasn't as great as the first series. Maybe Christmas is so glitzy that the over-the-top silliness didn't play as funny? It also seemed a little bit like making fun of "slow" people. Most of the characters just don't seem smart enough to carry off the huge amount of dialogue-as-exposition in the casual manner they were trying. Whatever the problem it just seemed stilted and off somehow. I am hoping that the new series will be back to the high (low?) standards set by the first.

Here, in no particular order, is my list of observed good and bad from the special:

• sponsored by a cold sore cream?  of course! Why not just say herpes?
• Sam still doesn't look a day under 25, I don't care how "glamourous" she is. She still looks like she's had major amounts of work done to her face (and no, Peter, that's not "how English people look" - that's skin pulled so tight she can't blink)
• Is it me or are all the women trying out for Lola completely out of (auto) tune? Yikes!
• And speaking of Lola - where was Julien?
• The micro pig as romantic gesture conversation between Arg and Mark was hilarious and for once I agree with Mark. However, I thought the scene where Arg gives the pig to Lydia, made me see that maybe they actually do like each other.
• What was Lydia wearing at the Lola audition party? a cropped pirate shirt? yowza! 

• Amy, Sam and Harry preparing the food! Who had that idea? Did you see Amy's nails when she was stuffing the bird?
• Where was Kirk? I need to know...
• I always thought that Sam and Mark were f*ck buddies and wasn't at all surprised when they went off together.

Here's hoping the next series is better!

Best Thing This Week - a tie

This week there is a tie for the Best Thing title. I debated long and hard which one to use as they both fantastic and ended up using both.

THE WEDDING DRESS ANGEL
Every year the wedding dress shop in Morningside has a Christmas wedding display. This time the display features a strapless wedding dress. Perfect for an evening winter wedding!?! I know that the wedding dress industry has gone over the top and every woman wants to be a princess on their special day. Tiaras are popular choice and who can forget Celine Dion's wedding crown that induce headaches and hair loss. Heck, my wedding dress was important to me and it only cost $80 (and I wore it with $12 shoes), but I do have to ask who wears wings on their dress? Or wants to shop at a store that advertises such things? This is an awesomely crazy dress and one of the best things this week.

AWESOME HEADLINE OF PATHOS

This was actually the second headline I saw about this incident. I didn't photograph the first but remember the words "rapist", "athlete" and "fireball". Of course this headline really gets to the core of the matter: the word curler just adds to the tragedy.
Tabloids style headlines are very popular here and even the "good" papers use over the top headlines to attract attention. I love reading them - they are works of art that manage to capture the most salacious of events in the same amount of syllables as a hiaku.

Best Thing This Week

I was going to save this and post it at some later point but sometimes you just need to bust out the good stuff. I found this via Lainey on Friday and have already watched it a a dozen times and forwarded it a bunch too. This is The Best Thing This Week:



It takes the place of the David Hasselholf "Hooked on a Feeling" video of a couple years ago that I played a couple of million times. If you haven't seen it (and you really, really should) check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJQVlVHsFF8 )
My favourite part is the fist pumping while dancing. He so into it, really selling it. Of course the random dancing fish people are pretty good too.

The thing about Celine is that she seems like a good person. Now, she seems kind of crazy. Definitely over the top. Judging from the video and a couple of Oprah interviews I've seen, she seems to be enjoying life on a different level then most of us. But in a fun way - she's a bit of a kick, right? I mean she wore that outfit to the Oscar's and got into some kind of tussle with Joan Rivers about the hat during the ceremony.

Celine seems like a decent person: according to Lainey she isn't into the freeloading that so many celebrities are and she pays her bills. She's active in charitable work and really seems to give a lot to her fans. Now all this is based on a few gossip columns and an Oprah interview from years ago so who knows? She may have Lohan-ed herself into oblivion and I wouldn't know a thing about it. But I like the idea that she's out there in all her loonieness enjoying life to the extreme, loving harder than anyone else and generally being awesome. And that video? Is pure gold. Thank you Celine, you are truly a gift that keeps on giving.