Blogtastic

Oops, forgot your underwear

2010-08-03T17:35:00.000+01:00

Can I have Bridget's car?

2010-08-01T20:51:00.001+01:00

Pleasantly surprising songs Vol. #1

2010-07-26T19:17:00.003+01:00

It's taken me about six months to realise that Adam Lambert isn't actually an even camper version of the Scissor Sisters. Well, he probably is but his album most certainly isn't. And this is a tune.

How to trick people into thinking you're good looking

2010-07-20T18:04:00.001+01:00

Gleetastic

2010-07-14T18:59:00.002+01:00

Playlist time. My favourites from the best thing since sliced bread:

Enjoy!

My first album review

2010-07-06T01:04:00.005+01:00

A rare collection of solid, catchy and surprisingly good pop songs all wasted on a silly little tramp.

That is all.

An ace few days (pun intended)

2010-06-23T14:49:00.013+01:00

This Monday I was lucky enough to visit the hallowed grounds of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. That's Wimbledon to you and me.

I'm thinking it would've been good to make a note of absolutely anything and everything I saw but, partly because it would've been a bit silly to make notes and partly because I didn't have a pen, I didn't. So instead you'll be getting an incoherent rambling of the day's events.

Before that, a quick word on Eastbourne. It's the fifth year in a row I've been to the tournament and it very rarely disappoints. This year was no different, although I would've loved to have seen Victoria Azarenka win in the women's final. Why? Because she's a headcase. I'd post the video of her having a tantrum at Wimbledon last year, but it seems to have vanished from YouTube. In a nutshell, she went on a massive rant about how the line judges and umpires have "so much power" and "ruin it for everybody". Then she shook the hand of one of the line judges after making a bad call.

It's funnier when you see it, trust me.

Photos from the semis and finals of Eastbourne can be found by clicking here.

Anyway, back to Wimbledon. We managed to bag a couple tickets through the LTA members' ballot so we were spared the kerfuffle of queuing up from the early hours of the morning or, more likely, the late hours of the night before. To me, that would be a bit of a nightmare - I don't like to be around crowds of British people for any longer than is necessary. We're all morons in this country.

Grounds were due to open at 10:30am, however they let us in pretty early at around 9:45. Nice of them. However, we weren't allowed to roam the grounds until after 10:30 so we were kind of trapped in a little pen to begin with - around Court 2 with a great view of some of the outside courts with the world famous Centre Court in the background.

Half past 10 came around and they did eventually open the rest of the grounds...sort of. There's a small path at the side of the outside courts (between Centre & Court 2) and, as expected, there was a mad rush to get through to the other side. Trouble is, they'd only opened one end of the path. Myself and hundreds of others were squashed into an even smaller pen for what seemed like an enternity. That's British crowd control for you. It was probabaly only around 10 minutes but still. I like to complain about things.

The complaining ends there though - the rest of the day was awesome. We wandered around the grounds for a while before play started and had a look at everything Wimbledon has to offer - Centre Court, Henman Hill (no, it's not fucking Murray Mount), Court 1, etc. What surprised me is that it's all so much smaller than I expected - you come out of Court 2 and Centre court is practically right there in your face. I was also a bit surprised when a small stampede of kids started running in our direction. Frightening stuff. Of course, when Rafael Nadal walked right past - it all made sense.

Djokovic was the next player we spotted, again followed by a crowd of young 'uns. He was on his way to one of the outside courts to practise ahead of his match against Rochus (which turned out to be a bit of an epic one. Part of me wishes I'd bought a Centre Court ticket from the resale and stayed there 'til the end) Novak is exactly how you'd expect him to be - joking around and high-fiving all the kids.

We watched him practise for a little while, along with Nikolay Davydenko who was on the next court before we took our seats on Court 2. The order of play was rather spectacular - Kim Clijsters to start and Lleyton Hewitt to finish, with Roland Garros champion Francesca Schiavone and the man with the awesome name, Mardy Fish, squeezed in between.

Kim won comfortably, as did Mardy - and both results were ones I hoped for. Despite dropping out of the top 100 this year (although he's back up to 70ish now) Fish is awesome, not just because of his name but he's already beat Andy Murray twice this year. That makes him a legend in my eyes, so I was eager for him to win. Not to mention his opponent, Bernard Tomic, is a brat. I recall him blaming his loss at the Aussie Open this year on the scheduling ie. he couldn't play very well because it was past his bedtime.

More photos can be found on my Flickr page: flickr.com/RobynVC

Between Fish and Schiavone's matches we legged it over to Henman Hill (more like someone's back garden than a hill, because it really is that small - nothing like what you see on the telly) to watch Federer's match on the big screen. At the time he'd just won the third set after being two sets and 0-40 down at 4-4 (I think) in the third and went on to take the fourth set in a tiebreaker. To be honest, after Roger won the third set I was pretty confident he'd win it in five. A player like Falla would fall apart after missing such a great opportunity. And he did - Federer bageled in him the final set. Still a pretty epic comeback, I must say.

We got back in time to see Schiavone lose (not overly suprising, despite the French Open win) and then for Hewitt's match against some Argentine ball basher. The Aussie fanatics were there to cheer on Hewitt (and Tomic earlier but meh) as they are every year and were sat just a couple of rows in front of us. Only once before have I ever been at a tennis match where the atmosphere was more like a football match. Definitely not a bad thing, just not very tennis-like. The "Super Lleyton Hewitt" chant has been stuck in my head ever since.

We left before the end of that match (Hewitt went on to win in four) in the hope of catching the end of Justine Henin's match against Sevastova, a player I saw in Estoril a couple of months ago. Unfortunately the court was packed and the queues to get in were pretty packed as well, so we raided the shop (standard) and went home.

So, I saw some big names, some quality tennis and managed to top up my tan without suffering any first degree burns. Pretty awesome I reckon.

For your amusement

2010-06-14T14:50:00.002+01:00

Courtesty of (meaning you should go check out) AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com

Shakira Shakira

2010-06-10T23:05:00.002+01:00

Nole never fails to amuse.

Yes, the Vengaboys are back. No, there are no words.

2010-06-08T19:35:00.002+01:00

Bad Robyn! Very bad.

2010-06-08T19:01:00.004+01:00

I have once again neglected this blog. Nobody reads it anyway but I always tell myself I should keep updating an awesome blog in the hope of becoming the next Perez Hilton.

Actually no, that'd be awful.

However I do need some place to show off awesome songs of the past, present and future via Spotify playlists and YouTube clips so I can be one of those musically precocious people who knows about all the best songs songs yonks before they come out and when they do come out, pretend they're bored of them already.

I hate those people too.

But I am one of those people. I recall posting about Ke$ha's TiK ToK many moons ago.

Damn.

Anyway, I also need to brag about seeing some of the world's greatest tennis players at various tournaments across Europe (and Canada this coming August) and I think I'll do some of that now. If I ever feel really inspired (or mind-numbingly bored) I might write about my time at Roland Garros/Estoril but for now, photo time! Enjoy.

Me circa 1990ish

2010-02-22T13:05:00.002Z

That's how we roll in Yorkshire

2010-02-01T19:48:00.002Z

Cheer up, Andy

2010-01-31T18:35:00.003Z

F$%!s^&"t$%&"(b)%*£!

2010-01-25T05:49:00.001Z

Why aye, Chezza

2010-01-24T19:18:00.000Z

Alex Ferguson, take note...

2010-01-13T18:37:00.002Z

You don't need added time to pull something amazing off.

I'm aware this is basketball, but still. HOW COOL WAS THAT?

I'm shameless

2010-01-11T22:33:00.006Z

Little bit of country, little bit of rock 'n' roll and a lot of cheese, finishing with the greatest song in the world...ever.

A-Rod > Jedward

2010-01-11T21:48:00.000Z

Call the RSPCA

2010-01-10T00:58:00.003Z

This cat's in (T-)pain

Belgium is back

2010-01-10T00:35:00.005Z

Bet they didn't see that one coming.

2009-12-27T19:13:00.000Z

My new favourite website

2009-11-01T00:35:00.002Z

I don't know whether these are real or not but I don't care, this site gives me some great lolz.

More to follow.

REDRUM!

2009-10-26T14:42:00.002Z

Daughtry's 'What About Now'

Murdered.

Alphabeat's 'Fascination'

Murdered.

On the bright side...

Brilliant.

Let's kick, and push, and coast...

2009-10-18T00:17:00.005+01:00

Lupe Fiasco, Bonnie covering Bonnie, everyone's favourite blind man, a couple of bird-related band names and some other stuff.

You know the drill.

Literally.

2009-10-15T12:55:00.001+01:00

Important educational video

2009-10-09T17:45:00.000+01:00

It's all downhill from here...

2009-10-05T13:17:00.004+01:00

...the X Factor, that is. Everyone knows that the audition process is always the best part of these kinds of shows but alas, we watch it right 'til the end anyway because there's nothing else on telly on a Saturday apart from a bit of ballroom dancing. Which is just...no.

Anyway, here's some of my favourite X Factor highlights for your amusement:

Watch out for about 1:30 in this next one. Priceless.

and finally, why the Xtra Factor is 35899389 times better than the ITV1 show...

1999

2009-10-03T01:07:00.003+01:00

Great year.

PORCUPINES?!? WHAT THE FUCK?!?!!?!?

2009-10-01T15:43:00.005+01:00

Pick 'n' Mix

2009-10-01T00:11:00.008+01:00

The initial idea was to think of a theme of some sort for my next playlist. Unfortunately, I couldn't be bothered to think so click on the picture below to hear a mix of stuff.

It shamelessly includes a bit of Hilary Duff, a track from Moby and Rod Stewart's take on a couple of Sam Cooke songs amongst others. Also in there is Lit's biggest hit as a little tribute to their drummer Allen Shellenberger, who passed away in August after losing his battle with brain cancer.

Lit were one of my favourite bands when I was younger and first getting into music properly, so I think it's more than appropriate to kick off the playlist with one of their songs.

My spoon is too big

2009-09-29T21:06:00.002+01:00

That was actually nominated for an Oscar. Brilliant.

I'm not good with accessories

2009-09-29T00:40:00.007+01:00

Right now I am hooked up to one of these things:

...only I'm not as bozz-eyed as that man there. Nor do I appear to be some sort of a trucker.

Anyway, that's basically stuck to my arm for the next 13 hours or so as is a not-so-little machine in an ugly case which is attached to an ugly belt that I have to wear around my waist, all of which is linked together with a big black wire that's kind of tangled around me. It's almost as inconspicuous as listening to music on a 20-year-old Walkman with a giant pair of rubbish headphones instead of a teeny little iPod.

I'm only writing about this because I'm not looking forward to going to bed and attempting to sleep with my Robocop gear on, especially when it takes a BP reading once every hour. It just took a reading now without warning ('cause the thingy doesn't beep at night) and it just scared the shit out of me. My blood pressure will go through the roof if I'm jumping out of my skin every 60 minutes. It's going to be a long night.

On the bright side, all the cool kids wear them.

and take photos of themselves wearing it with an abnormally large camera lens.

fml.

YouTube fix #4

2009-09-28T00:59:00.003+01:00

I wish my school/college/uni...okay maybe not uni, but I wish i could've been a part of something like this. All done in one take, so cool.

Top 5 moments of that video:

5) The spandextastic Chariots of Fire moment at 2:49

4) 3:42. I like him.

3) Jumping off that sofa (C'MON!) at 2:28

2) The girl (or guy, can't tell) on the escalators at 1:44 who was clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time and possibly didn't even know what was going on.

and my favourite moment...

1) Everything about the moment at 1:24

Spotifytastic...nah, doesn't work does it.

2009-09-25T17:32:00.008+01:00

Spotify is quite the invention. Free music streaming - brilliant, and not to mention you can also make your own playlists and share them with the world wide interwebnet. The adverts may get on your tits after a while, but it's all worth it.

If you haven't signed up and downloaded Spotify yet then I suggest you do so now. Then you can click on the picture below and listen to my first playlist which is full of goodies.

There's a couple of Madonna tracks on there, old and new, to mark the release of another greatest hits compilation, Celebration. Mix that with Kid Cudi, some more songs/artists I've mentioned on here and a few extras from the likes of Frankmusik and voila, you have a nice little playlist.

Enjoy.

Go to a party, get shitfaced, then write a song about it

2009-09-25T15:13:00.006+01:00

That's the new formula for making a successful pop track. Something that the average young British woman with little or no morals and/or dignity can relate to. It worked for Lady GaGa and it'll work for this lady Ke$ha.

I wish I could wake up in the morning and feel like P Diddy. But unfortunately I'm not a black rapper and record producer, so I can't.

As much as I hate people who brag about getting absolutely wankered every other night and the ones who feel the need to update their Facebook status on a night out via their mobile to tell us just how wankered they are, the subject does tend to make for a bloody good pop track.

Take this,

add some electro pop beats, a catchy chorus and some nonsensical lyrics and you've got yourself a #1 hit.

Murder on the Dancefloor

2009-09-23T16:27:00.007+01:00

R.I.P. Sugababes [1998-2009]

Gone are the days when people actually bought CD singles, when people actually gave a monkey's about chart positions, when pop music seemed sane without supposed hermaphrodites spamming the music channels.

And gone are all three original members of the Sugababes. I can see the correlation here, and I have come to a shocking conclusion...

The Sugababes killed music.

Not illegal file sharing, not the demise of Top of the Pops, not the recession, no - it was the Sugababes. They wielded their axes, sharpened their swords and bashed music in the head repeatedly, then chopped its limbs off and had them for tea.

Nobody suspected this would happen after the ginger one left all those years ago, however when she was replaced by a Scouser, you'd have thought that someone would've spotted the warning signs.

Now all hell has broken loose. Hermaphrodites are topping the charts, Kanye West won't stop interrupting people and Lily Allen is going mental on her computer, posting angry blogs about how she's not as rich and spoilt as she could be because of illegal file sharing.

The music world has gone tits up, and it's all the Sugababes' (if you can still call them the Sugababes) fault. And they ripped off Right Said Fred.

Shame on you Sugababes, shame on you...

Best goal EVARRRRR!!!

2009-09-16T14:36:00.003+01:00

I'm disgusted with myself

2009-09-16T14:11:00.005+01:00

I have previously ranted on many occasions about how truly and utterly awful "Day N Nite" was, but there's actually a song by Kid Cudi (or KiD CuDi if you want to be retarded and bugger about with upper and lower case letters for no reason...another reason why I should hate him) that I like. Sacre bleu.

Kanye West outbursts reach new levels

2009-09-15T17:27:00.007+01:00

I'm actually a little bit grateful for Kanye being an absolute tool now that all these gems are popping up on the interwebnet.

Here's an ingenious remix of the VMA scandal

Disclaimer

2009-09-03T23:01:00.003+01:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the disclaimer. That's right, the disclaimer.

This American apple pie institution known as parental discretion will cleanse any sense of innuendo or sarcasm from the lyrics that might actually make you think
and will also insult your intelligence at the same time.

So protect your family! This album contains explicit depictions of things which are real, these real things are commonly known as life.

So if it sounds sarcastic, don't take it seriously.
If it sounds dangerous, do not try this at home or at all
and if it offends you, just don't listen to it.

Drugs are bad, mmmkay?

2009-08-30T00:14:00.004+01:00

DJ AM Found Dead in New York : Rolling Stone
(click for article)

So the man miraculously survives a plane crash, isn't an obese monster anymore and is living it up on MTV with Travis Barker.

Sad story and all, but what a fool.

Wemberleyyy, Wemberleyyy

2009-07-27T21:24:00.017+01:00

This is what Wembley Stadium looms like from the outside...

This is what a statue of Bobby Moore looks like...

This is what Wembley Way looks like...

This is what a pointless piece of architecture looks like...

This is what Wembley Stadium looks like from the inside...

This is what FC Barcelona look like warming up...

This is what Al-Ahly look like...

This is what Spurs and Celtic look like warming up...

This is what some teams lining up looks like...

All of that looks a lot like Wembley, albeit half empty for most of the afternoon.

YouTube fix #3

2009-07-25T17:41:00.003+01:00

This sort of thing should be considered compulsory at weddings.

It's tricky

2009-07-23T22:06:00.004+01:00

To rock a rhyme and not just any rhyme, but a rhyme that's right on time is rather tr-tr-tr-tr-trickayyyy don't you know.

YouTube fix #2

2009-07-20T18:06:00.004+01:00

Over 5 million views says this isn't new or unheard of at all but I don't care - it's funny.

The Ashes...complete gash.

2009-07-12T14:43:00.004+01:00

Something about the Ashes puzzles me.

In my post (or rant, whatever you want to call it) I made recently about Andy Murray and his bandwagon, I went on about how it can pretty much be classed as glory hunting and whatnot. However with the Ashes there seems to be a hundred times more hype surrounding it, yet common sense tells us that England have fuck all chance of winning and never do.

I especially dislike Kevin Piertersen (and the strange spelling of his surname)

...and his gay vest.

I don't understand the fascination with the Ashes, especially since cricket in general is bloody boring. England will just get embarrassed by the Aussies and the same will happen again in few years time and a few more times after that.

Strange. Bring back the footie season already.

YouTube fix #1

2009-07-01T21:34:00.004+01:00

The first of a series of regular updates containing a selection of weird and wonderful videos that YouTube has to offer.

Two-week tennis fans

2009-06-30T17:30:00.007+01:00

...really get on my tits.

The amount of idiots you see in the crowd on Centre Court for Andy Murray matches is ridiculous. My blood was boiling while watching the Wawrinka match last night and not just because I happen to have an incredibly strong dislike for the Scot. Cheering and chanting every time Warwinka made an error just isn't right - a less experienced player than Wawrinka would've crumbled under the pressure of almost being jeered by an ignorant pro-British crowd.

Everyone seems to have forgotten that nobody actually liked Murray a year or two ago after he made that "anti-English" comment (which wasn't really anti-English, but he was dumb enough to come out with it given that the English media would be all over him like a rash)

A year on and suddenly Andy Murray starts winning some stuff. Queue the bandwagon!

It wouldn't surprise me if the majority of these two-week tennis fans all support Manchester United because what I'm seeing is the same sort of cringetastic glory hunting that you get in football.

I probably wouldn't be half as bothered by this if it weren't for Murray being such a douche. Yes, he's improved immensely over the past year or so and yes, he's a good tennis player but his attitude is awful. Not to mention he comes across as perhaps the most arrogant player on the tour.

I don't care if you've joined a gym, Andy - you still look like Napoleon Dynamite.

He's a hard man, too. Watch out Phil Mitchell.

WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT MY MUM?!?!?!
HE'S TALKING ABOUT MY MUM
TELL HIM TO STOP
WAHHHHHHH
IT'S UNACCEPTABLE
WAHHHHHHH
I NEED A WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHMBULANCE.

Bloody hell. Makes you want to puke.

I've never liked the Brit Awards

2009-02-19T19:17:00.004Z

Seriously, what the fuck was that?

Funny how everyone ripped it out of Britney when she mimed on the X Factor, yet this Take That performance was supposedly meant to be 'epic'. Get out of Gary Barlow's arse, will you?

In general, the Brit Awards really suck. I only saw 15 minutes of the 2009 awards, but it's 15 minutes of my life I'll never get back and I'm actually quite sad about that.

Comic Relief just got a tramp stamp

2009-02-10T14:33:00.004Z

I like the Saturdays, but this is just plain awful. No doubt the music channels will bum it and then it'll become even more excruciating to listen to. As for the video, see the title. Oh dear.

This single is proof that chart music is currently going through a very very very very very very very very very very very very bad patch. For example:

I genuinely cannot comprehend why any human being, educated or otherwise, could possibly bear listening to this gobshite. Really, I'm dumbfounded.

People should stop whinging about the snow

2009-02-07T18:42:00.001Z

Why complain? Instead, you could go out and attempt to create a snowman that ends up looking a bit like a meerkat.

Simples.

My new ringtone

2009-01-29T19:07:00.001Z

This is good. This is great.

2009-01-14T19:46:00.001Z

You said it, Same Difference.

I love crap telly.

2009-01-07T00:18:00.001Z

American Idol is returning to our screens pretty soon and I, for one, cannot bloody wait. I've spent the latter months of each year for the past three or four years complaining about how crappy The X Factor is compared to 'Idol', quite simply because it is. Even when last year's 'Idol' was pretty awful, the UK version was just abysmal. Still, I love them both dearly.

There seems to be an obsession with finding someone "unique" either side of the Atlantic - let's just hope 2009's 'Idol' doesn't find the American equivalent of Diana Vickers, thus leading to yet more glorified spewfests such as this:

Honestly, it was the kind of puppy love that made you wish Cruella de Vil would sort them out. Mind you, the mickey takes were so worth it...

Blog off.

2009-01-04T23:43:00.001Z

Blog right off. And get a haircut.

New year = new blog, by the way. Maybe I'll actually stick with this one.