Monday's mane attraction: Katy Perry in the pink

The pink hair (Manic Panic Cotton Candy Pink is similar), the lady tuxedo shirt, open bow tie and cummerbund, the crystal studded mic AND stand... 

Haterz gonna hate, but there was nothing I didn't love about Katy Perry's appearance on last night's X Factor.


{image sources: 1. via Glamour; 2. via Daily Mail; 3. via Glamour}

It's a Jersey thing.

I have never actually watched an episode of Jersey Shore, but that didn't stop me from gleefully playing with the Jersey Shore Nickname Generator. Stick in your given moniker, tell the nice generator if you're a boy or a girl, start working on your accent, attitude, and tan, and it'll tell you what your name would be if you were a Jersey Shore character.

You may now refer to me as - wait for it - "The Opportunity".

Himself's Jersey Shore name, meanwhile, is "The Prince of Paramus".

Er... right.

Even the dog's ("B-Train") is better than that.


{image source: South Park Studios}

Jog on, kitties.

My Monday morning gift to you: the brilliant Cravendale cats TV ad.

Yizzer welcome.

Rap Safety Authority get down with the youngsters.

via the RSA website

I see that the Road Safety Authority are getting hip to the kids, yo, with their current Safe Cross Code campaign. It features six creepy looking animated childer who put me in mind of zombie children, rapping the SCC. 

Cher Lloyd, eat your heart out.

There's a dance (how modern!), and a forcefield that blocks the road unless you invoke the code (ooh, futuristic), but all I can think when I see the ads is that I miss Judge from Wanderly Wagon. And the amazingly catchy song. If you're of a certain vintage, I bet you remember every single word of it - is that rap really going to stick in kid's heads in the same way? 

I seriously doubt it.
 

The original & best, via dinadangdong on YouTube

Inspiration on the tellybox: 'Mo Thinteán Féin'

In honour of the fact that interiors show Mo Thinteán Féin is an Irish language programme, broadcast on the Irish language television channel TG4, I started to write the introduction to this post as Gaeilge.

Then I remembered that, as bad as my conversational, spoken Irish is, I have no confidence at all in my written Irish, so it was back to the Béarla with a bang.

Anyway, Mo Thinteán Féin follows Eimear Nic an Bhaird as she does up her new-to-her gaff in Kilmainham, Dublin 8. Interiors junkies like myself will no doubt recognise the name: Eimear was formerly the editor of Irish interiors mag House & Home, so it's fair to say that the lady knows her arse from her elbow when it comes to decor and design. 

Every week, Eimear tackles a different space in the house, visiting gorgeous Irish interiors like Bellinter House and The G Hotel for inspiration. She also travels around the country to top craftspeople who help her create some gorgeous bespoke pieces for her home. 

At a time when "craft" has almost become a dirty word thanks to the proliferation of Martha Stewart wannabes and the kind of rubbish that you see every day on Regretsy ("Where DIY meets WTF"), I think it's fantastic that Mo Thinteán Féin showcases some of the truly awesome Irish craftspeople that are out there. 

I was particularly enamoured with the stained glass panels that Eimear and Bianca Divito created for the bathroom and bedroom doors:

... and the hand-printed wallpaper made with Paget in the Dublin Textile Workshop that eventually adorned the stair risers:

This lovely white lightshade with its geometric, textured design also caught my eye:

There's lots of DIY - and DadIY, my kind of girl - here, and it's refreshing to see a homes show that's really focused on creating an affordable personal space. 

As opposed to one that's focused on throwing telephone number sums of money at a new build (Grand Designs, where the windows are always late and the missus always winds up pregnant halfway through), painting everything magnolia (oh hai Property Ladder, where the presenter always winds up pregnant halfway through), or confusing the words "classic" and "classical" in every episode (*cough* Showhouse *cough*).

All images via TG4

Note: Mo Thinteán Féin has now finished its run on TG4 but, as of today, you can catch the final three episodes here, on the TG4 Beo Player.

X Factor Fashion Fever, Part I

We are feckin' glued to the X Factor every weekend in this house, and one of my favourite bits of the show is when the judges first emerge onstage every night so I get a chance to have a good full-length goo at what Cheryl and Dannii are wearing. 

And shout "what the feck is that?!" at the telly when Cheryl does her little semi-salute thing as her name's announced.

Dannii has been streets ahead in the style stakes this year as far as I'm concerned, and I rather liked the look of the statement turquoise earrings she wore on Saturday night. She's been sporting Annoushka jewellery religiously throughout the series, and last weekend was no exception.

I suspect that these laddies might be just a leetle out of my price range, but stay tuned - I'll have some suggestions later in the day about how you and I can get the look on a shoestring budget.

AaaaAAAAAAAARRrrggh!

The Breffmeister gone from D'Apprentiss last Monday.

A blatant hand ball sending our World Cup dreams packing on Wednesday.

Jedward departing the X Factor last night.

And then Aoif-ah-fah-fah-fah and her wide eyes foirt from tonight's Apprentice?! (But not without a shed-load of Gerrrrrtaldine negativity - notable quotables from her taxi ride away from a career as Bill Cullen's apprentice included "Jammy bitch, Geraldine!")

Seriously, like.

Worst. Telly Week. EVER.

Evenin' all...

Have just had dinner (diced lamb marinated in harissa paste and olive oil, cous cous with black olives, feta, basil, oven-roasted red peppers and tomatoes, served with a big dollop of Greek-stylee yoghurt. Oh yes, I iz just dat fancy), watched three episodes of my new favourite telly show How I Met Your Mother back to back, and am now catching up on Sky Plussed The Apprentice while trying to avoid any spoilers and having a glass of Pinot Grigiot and doing some Beaut.ie-ing and thinking about putting weeny multi-coloured pom poms on the purple curtains in the spare room.


Busy busy busy, ha?

I could be really predictable and lazy and call this post "XOXO, Gossip Girl"...

I caught the tail end of an episode of Gossip Girl last night, my first brush with the series. I guess it's just always clashed with CSI (not Miami) or Ghost Whisperer before, and to be honest I can't really be doing with tellyshows where twenty-somethings pretend to be high school students a lá The OC or Beverly Hills 90210.

So I'm a wee bit late to the GG party. And I'm not sure that I love it, to be perfectly honest: Kristen Bell's voiceover grates on my wick and I don't much care for any of the characters.

The threads are, admittedly, wonderful. I am coveting Blair's wardrobe in a big way - well, the stuff that doesn't look like it was lifted directly from Charlotte of SATC's rail - but sadly am too naturally nerdy to pull off any class of preppy gear without looking like a complete tool.

(Highly gratuitous Chuck Bass photo especially for Kirstie.)

Wedding daze

We were watching The Apprentice on TV the other night, the one where the teams had to sell wedding dresses and wedding accessories at The National Wedding Show in Birmingham's NEC. One of the contestants gleefully remarked that this would be the easiest task ever for her because sure don't all women spend their lives wistfully dreaming of the day they - at last! - get wed?

Er, well actually...

As anyone who knows me will know only too well, I am just not into the whole wedding thing. I had to go and have a little lie down after just typing the first line of this blog entry. Weddings are in that category of Things That Other People Do, like having babies or jumping out of planes or hoovering or drinking coffee. I'm pretty sure people are getting bored of asking me when we're going to set a date and me raising an eyebrow in what's supposed to be a suggestive, I'm-filthy-kinky-you-know fashion and murmuring, "Oh no, not for us thanks, I'm quite happy to live in sin" which is great.

It's not just the idea of a wedding itself that I have took agin, although I'm not a fan of Irish weddings generally. Church, white dress, stiff-looking hair (and that's just the bride's mother), rank bridesmaids frocks ("and you'll get so much wear out of it afterwards!"), ridiculous waistcoats/cravats/tailcoats, vintage car, photos outside the church if weather permits, hotel, champagne reception, more pics, pre-dinner drinks, turkey-or-salmon, drinks, cringey speeches, worse music, more drinks, "Come On Eileen", drinks, "Daydream Believer", drinks, "Rock The Boat", drinks, awful dancing... Does that or does that not bear more than a passing resemblance to every typical Irish wedding you've ever been to?

Anyways, I just can't imagine myself being married. Ever. Me? Married! Nope, that's someone else's life.

The least sensitive person I've ever met (she has all the subtlety of a cargo plane piloted by a brick wall and an army tank) told me the other day that that's just because I haven't met the right person.

The cheek of it, for a start! The truth of it is she just can't fathom how any girl wouldn't want to be hitched, but I still went through her for a shortcut. Silly cow. Who says that, like?

Lookit, I'm not anti-marriage, it's great for other people. I don't have commitment issues. And no, I don't want to be with anyone but Himself. Ever. I'm not going to get into it in great length here, but I love him. I am madly in love with him. End of.

But weddings and marriage and shizz... seriously, that's someone else's life. We did have a meander around the engagement ring floor in Tiffany when we were in New York in January (oh, did I mention we were in New York..?) because I wanted to have a gawk at the bling, and holy God they were beautiful, the most sparkly schparklers I have ever seen. I would have no objection to anyone furnishing me with one of those babes.

For my right hand, natch...

You're A Sta-a-aar!

Ah, it's Charity You're A Star time again, where TV personalitees "sing" their little hearts out only to have Brendan O'Connor, Amanda Brunker and Delta Goodrum's scruffy boyfriend ridicule them. But hey, that's ok, because of course all the judges are bonafide music exper- ahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaa, sorry, no, no they're not and it would be wildly irresponsible of me to imply otherwise even in jest; what if some gombeen who doesn't get sarcasm happened to read that? This year's judging panel is comprised of Ireland's Angriest, Most Wierdy Nosed Man [who coincidentally happens to be Ireland's Greatest Egomaniac and Ireland's Most Conceited D*ckwad. Talk about value for money!], the Miss Ireland of 16 years ago turned Sunday World journalist [I know, I know, I also thought the two were mutually exclusive, but hey she's their "What Happened In Lillies Last Night" correspondant] and Delta Goodrum's scruffy boyfriend [he's with an Aussie now and apparantly that means best possible TV attire = combat shorts].

Of course, the judges don't just indiscriminately tear shreds off people; sure, as Brian Ormond's kilt telling us when he's not off camera having another layer of slap trowelled on or doing his best "pause for dramatic effect" pause before announcing a result, it's all for charidee. The judges aren't quite so mouthy if they're pally with the celebridee in question / want in their pants / might need to get tickets off them for some gig, natch. Case in point: La Brunker on the first night of the programme ho-ho-ing that she wasn't going to say anything bad about the kiddie TV presenting duo because she'll likely be looking for tickets to their shows for her sprogs in a few months time. Come back Linda, all is forgiven!

Why am I watching it, given that the whole thing irks me so?

Good question. Luckily, I have a good response all lined up and raring to go. I'm tuning in to keep abreast of how Sean Ban Breathnach is doing. He's representing The Carers Association, and I have little stubs where my fingers used to be from texting my support.

It goes without saying that all of the charities are incredibly worthy causes, but The Carers Association is one that strikes a particular chord with me, having watched the hardship my Mam endured caring for my Granny 24/7 when she lived with us. Although the government has begun to initiate some services for carers, the vast majority of Ireland's 150,000 family carers remain without vital services - just 18% are in receipt of the Carers Allowance.

The Carers Association is Ireland's national vountary organisation for and of family carers in the home, and delivers a range of services and supports to family carers. These include a home respite service, information and training, and a dedicated Care Line, in addition to lobbying politically at local and national level.

All funds raised through Charity You’re A Star will go towards providing essential respite, information, training and support services to family Carers through The Carers Association’s 16 centres nationwide.

The voting lines are now open. You can support The Carers Association by keeping Sean Ban Breathnach and his, eh, unique voice in the competition by phoning 1513 7171 04 or texting VOTE SEAN to 53600. Think of how cross Brendan will be! Imagine the state the furrow/overlap/whatever the hell that yoke is between his forehead and nose will be in with consternation and rage if Sean Ban were to win! Maybe he'd throw the towel in altogether *holds breath in hope...* Votes cost 60c, although calls from mobiles normally cost more.

And if you'd like to get up close and personal with The Unholy Judging Triumvirate and maybe give them a smack get yourself on De Telly you can call Geraldine on (086) 8076158 or Karen on (056) 7753600 to join The Carers Association supporters in the audience. Go on, your ma would only love to catch a glimpse of you on the box and sure [all together now] isn't it for charidee!

For more information about the services offered by The Carers Association, visit their website at www.carersireland.com.

My Favourite Ad

It's my current #1, and vying for a place in my heart as possibly The Greatest Ad Of All Time. It is, without doubt, the best of the new Lynx campaign [and a recent opinion poll of randomers conducted by moi has confirmed same]. All together now: Bom Chicka Wah Wah...