The Blind Date Dilemma?

I’ve been asked to go on a blind date and against my better judgement I’m thinking that I might go.

The set up is very tenuous and it has disaster written all over it. The flatmate of my friend, who I’ve only met a few times, suggested me for her work colleague’s friend who she has not even met. Worse still, this same friend is the person who set me up on my only blind date so far and that did not exactly go well.

It was about 8 years ago and my friend suggested I go on a blind date with her colleague Jennifer who I was told was half Italian and half Australian, 5ft 3inches, with beautiful red hair. I felt that my friend was a good judge of character and so I agreed to do it.

I arranged to meet her for early evening drinks and shortly before our meeting time, she calls to say she is running ten minutes late. She had a nice soft Australian accent and I started to think that maybe this could actually be good.

Ten minutes later I am standing outside the pub waiting for her to show up. For some reason, lots of women fitting her description walk past and as I try to make eye contact with them they just look at me like I’m a mentalist. Then she arrived.

You know when you meet someone, you immediately make a subconscious judgement about their appearance. For example, it could be ‘Oh yes!’, ‘Nice’, ‘Not bad’ or possibly ‘No way, never ever’. Unfortunately, Jennifer sparked the ‘no way never ever’ reaction.

The beautiful red hair was, in fact, a big ginger mess. Her face was literally plastered in makeup as she was trying to cover up her large number of freckles. There is nothing wrong with freckles, but it is slightly off-putting to see a face caked in makeup crumbling off whilst you talk to them.

I clearly didn’t fancy her, but thought this could potentially be a new friend. However, from the time it took to say hello outside the pub until we had got to the bar, she explained how much she hated London and Londoners (knowing I was from London). She then proceeded to explain how she hated black people, homosexuals and that Muslims were all liars. However, it was okay for her to say that as she told me she had Muslim friends.

An hour and a half later I said I had to leave to get to the party I was going to (this was a lie) and we said goodbye and shook hands. I wasn’t going to kiss a cheek covered in makeup, my lips would have gone white!

The next day I visited my friend who had set me up and asked why she thought I was suited to a racist homophobic bigot? My friend apologised and then told me that she had been acting weird at work as well?!

So I’ve not been a fan of blind dates since then and think the best way of setting people up is to invite them both to a social gathering of some kind and make sure they get introduced to each other. If there is chemistry, then they will get chatting on their own and if there isn’t, then you have saved them from the trauma of a blind date.

This blind date will be ridiculously awful. You now know as much about her as I do. However, because it is likely to be so terrible, that is why I am leaning towards going.

The Mojito Mile

“One day, one mile, many mojitos”

Often the simplest ideas are the most genius ones.

The Mojito Mile is a pub crawl of the nice bars that serve Mojitos in Clapham (South London). Nothing new about pub crawls, but the Mojito Mile somehow mixes the right balance of drinking, great venues and socialising.

Pub crawls are usually fun but can be a bit extreme. The Monopoly pub crawl (drinking in a pub on every street and station on the monopoly board) is a classic example and although is a cracking day it is also a bit hard core as you have no real time to rest. There is constant pressure to drink up as soon as possible and get travelling to the next place.

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The Mojito Mile on the hand is quite leisurely with 7 bars visited over the whole day and about an hour and a half spent in each venue. The whole journey is one mile so a pace of 0.1mph is something that everyone can cope with.

Clapham (Old Town, Common & High Street) is blessed with lots of great pubs and bars and as the Mojito Mile visits the places that make good Mojitos (note: drinking Mojitos is not compulsory but Mojito Milers are encouraged to have one Mojito at some point during the day) it means you get to go to some of the very best bars in London. Bars on the Mojito Mile have included:

Lost Society (Time Out Best Bar 2006/7) - www.lostsociety.co.uk

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The Loft (Time Out Best Bar 2008) – www.theloftclapham.com

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Aquum – www.aquum.co.uk

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64th&Social -
www.64thsocial.com

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Grafton House – www.graftonhouseuk.com

The very best part of the day is the fact you get to socialise and chat to not only good friends but meets lots of new people. Because of the nature of the event, you end up speaking to everyone else as you venture your way down the mile.

With the 3^rd Mojito Mile coming up in June 2010 it is clearly a proven recipe for success.

Have you thought about taking a Life Art Drawing Class?

A little while ago a friend suggested going to a Life Art Drawing Class and I was a little dubious for two reasons:

1)      I hadn’t done any proper drawing since school (like 20 years ago … god, I’m getting old), and even then I didn’t draw that much, unless  you include drawing a big tipex cock on James Kershaw’s folder

2)      I would be staring at a naked person for a couple of hours. Potentially looking at and drawing a naked cock for two hours and I wasn’t sure I really wanted to do that. In fact, I was 99% certain I didn’t want to draw a cock for two hours, but then I remembered the tipex cock and thought, well, okay.

We found this place near Angel (in London) where you just turn up and pay per class rather than signing up for a series of classes. I have to say I totally recommend doing it, it was really interesting even though drawing the human body is damn hard (as you can see from my efforts below).

I didn’t have any drawing equipment but you could get paper, charcoal, boards, etc. there and I went for just simple approach of paper and charcoal sticks with a board to rest on my lap.

The class was packed out as we formed a circle around the model, some seated and those with easels behind. My cock fears were not realised as there was a female model for the session.

It was a little weird at first as she disrobed and the class leader put her into a pose, but within minutes it was perfectly normal for a group of clothed people to be staring at the naked person in the middle.

The two hour session was split into a variety of different poses to enable practice of drawing the body in different positions and perspectives. Some poses were long (30mins), one was a super quick 2mins (very hard!) and several 10mins and 20mins poses.

Drawing the body is really difficult and does need a lot of practice and technique, but was really fun and interesting to do. At the half-time break my friend and I were really buzzing and couldn’t wait to get back to it.

As the below shows, I’m clearly no artist, but you don’t have to be good to enjoy it. If that were true I would never play golf again.

Life art drawing class … give it a go.

Jake McMillan

P.S. The originals are available to purchase if anyone’s interested

You really feel the pressure when having to draw in a short time frame

Quite a few of my efforts look like poor 19th Century Autopsy diagrams

The model's face was a lot nice than appears here

I think this was the best one I did

I went a bit wrong on this one and rather than starting again I decided to draw the other artists in the background

I had definitely peaked before the end of the class. The bottle in the top left was powering the heater next to it, in case you were wondering

Film Review: Shadowboxer (2005)

Shadowboxer arrived through my door earlier in the week via my DVD rental service (I use lovefilm.com here in the UK) and I could not actually remember putting the film on my list or what the film was about?

A quick IMDB search reminded me that it was seemingly a thriller type film about an odd pairing of assassins, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Dame Helen Mirren?! It is directed by 2010 Oscar-nominated Director, for the film Precious, Lee Daniels. I think I had come across the title when looking up what other stuff Vanessa Ferlito had been in, after seeing her again in Day 3 of 24 (the best series of 24 in my opinion).

On the face of it, the film is really quite intriguing. The lead two actors are interesting and are well supported by not only Ferlito, but by Macy Gray (looking a bit like a transvestite, but maybe she always looks like that?), Stephen Dorff (what has happened to him these days?), Mo’Nique (2010 Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actress) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (from3rd Rock from the Sun). First-time director Lee Daniels is at the helm, the man who produced Monster’s Ball and The Woodsman. The renowned designer, Vivienne Westwood, also designed the costumes for the lead players.

Here is the trailer:

Shadowboxer is an offbeat and slow-paced film that focuses on the character Mikey, excellently played by Cuba Gooding Jr., who had an abusive father and loses both his parents at a young age. He had been brought up by an assassin Rose (Helen Mirren, also good) and they work together as a close knit team, with a rather unusual relationship where Rose acts both as Mikey’s mother and lover.

We learn very early in the film that Rose is dying of terminal cancer and begins to question whether she is being punished by god. On their next assignment she makes a choice that has a significant effect on both their lives. As the years goes by, Mikey gradually realises he is not simply content with being an assassin but is enjoying playing a father role. Predictably though, events from the past catch up with them.

It is easy to see why Director Lee Daniels would have been interested in this subject but the film does not really know whether it is more a character-driven story or a thriller and fails on both counts. Cuba Gooding Jr. is great in the role, but it was only an hour into the movie that I realised that the film was meant to be about his character Mikey as it had seemed like it was more about Helen Mirren’s character Rose?

The film has a reasonable amount of violence, sex and nudity (e.g. Stephen Dorff’s condom-covered winkle and Gooding Jr and Mirren getting down to it in the park) but they don’t add anything to the story and often serve to make the viewer a little uncomfortable. This could be deliberate of course by the director, but there is no logical reason why it should be so?

In the world the characters operate in, there is plenty of opportunity to film scenes to entertain and enthral without it being cheesy or taking away from the narrative or characters. Take Luc Besson’s 1994 assassin film, Leon, this is a well directed and photographed movie with superb performances that combines drama of character struggles with engaging and exciting action scenes.

Of course, Shadowboxer should not be a copy of this type of film and I respect and enjoy when a film takes an original approach. However, Shadowboxer misses great opportunities to excite and enthral the viewer. I can only guess that the director is trying to show the coldness of the assassin Mikey and how nothing gets to him, not even the potential adrenalin of the kill.

The finale of the story could have been far more tense and exciting in the hands of a more experienced director. There is a good supporting cast, but they are underused with little or no character development.

If you enjoy offbeat type films and find the cast and story intriguing then I would recommend watching Shadowboxer, otherwise I think you will be left rather unsatisfied and disappointed.

If only more music videos were like this?

by Jake McMillan

When someone sends you a link to a Ukrainian music video, you don’t normally have high expectations, but this one quickly grabbed my attention. Well, after 25 seconds it did. (Note: safe but not recommend for work).

So you can see why it grabbed my attention?

Although, my one complaint is that it is not very realistic. I mean, two women walk through a shopping mall and don’t buy a single thing, when does that happen in real life?

Although the video successfully grabs your attention visually, I have to confess that I really quite liked the track. I have no idea what any of the words mean, although the title ‘Verevki’ means ‘Ropes’ I believe.

When I try to sing along to the opening verse, this is what I sing:

‘Xarn and Zippy are really not happy while they shoot Godzilla,
They’re groaning  while they eat a cracked bowl of their big dinner,
Switch their dark mood quick and fast by preparing paella,
Da boy’

Then later on, I’m sure there is mention of an electric shock, but don’t you dare mock, especially when at the dock.

Here is a funny spoof version of this video (it is very well made and it was shown to NikitA on a television programme)

The band NikitA (with a big A at the end) are made up of Dasha Astafieva and Julia Kavtaradze and in the Verevki video they use a similar concept to the video for ‘Baby Baby Baby’ by Make the Girl Dance where 3 different naked women walk through a busy street in Paris with black blocks added afterwards to cover up their naughty bits. I guess another similar-ish video is ‘Lessons Learned’ by Matt and Kim which sees Matt and Kim strip off in New York’s Time Square.

Dasha Astafieva claims that, in an interview with askmen.com in 2009, she and Julia dress up like twins and exude an “aggressive sexual energy”.

Dasha is by far the better known of the two and has appeared in Ukrainian and American Playboy as well as being selected to be the 55^th Anniversary Playmate. She apparently has aspirations to become a Bond girl. She has no objections from me, except I’m not sure how much of speaking role she should have judging from her Playboy interview below (totally safe for work).

For those who may be interested, here are a couple of behind the scenes photos from the Verevki video as well as some other pictures of NikitA: