Tag Archives: london
The Daily Squeeze: No Water Bottles In London, The World’s Most Powerful Women, And Divorce Rates
Garden Tribute For Beatle George Harrison
George Harrison loved to garden — the dedication in his autobiography I Me Mine reads, “To All Gardeners Everywhere.” And at the Chelsea Flower Show in London, his widow, Olivia, is honoring his memory with a garden. The first part of the garden shows George’s birthplace in Liverpool, the second symbolizes the Sgt. Pepper days with brightly colored flowers, and the third area is more subdued and represents the period of time after Beatlemania passed and George became more spiritual. Before George died of lung cancer in 2001, he and Olivia would go to the flower show every year, and George would take notes on the plants he liked. “I really cannot think of a more joyful thing to do for George and I know he would approve,” Olivia said. “I do feel close to him in the garden.” [Reuters] Keep reading »
Quick Pic: Posh Challenges Her Shadow To A Pose-Off
I think her top is really, really cool. [Harrods Department Store, London, U.K., 5/15/08] Keep reading »
Sexual Assault Is No Laughing Matter
English “comedian” Johnny Vegas isn’t talented, but he is up to some serious funny business. Last Friday night, at one of his shows in London, after admitting he “had no material, and that he was there mostly to get laid,” Vegas allegedly singled out a teenage girl half his age in the audience. According to Maureen O’Hara’s Guardian U.K. article. despite the 18-year old’s trepidation, six members of the audience supposedly carried her on stage. O’Hara’s says that Vegas made the girl pretend to be dead so she would lie still, but she couldn’t stop giggling from nerves. Keep reading »
Gone With The Wind: The Musical!
One of the things my paternal grandmother gave me, besides an addiction to soap operas and a moderate talent for knitting, is a huge appreciation for the genius of Gone With The Wind. I’ve read the book — all 1037 pages of it — 20 times and have seen the movie — all 238 minutes of it — double that many times. Put aside the la-di-da approach to slavery, the romanticizing of the Civil War, and the few boring chapters in the middle — it is the best book ever. For those of you who just don’t think you can handle such an in-depth read, or the bed sores that come from sitting through the movie, there’s good news! Gone With The Wind is opening as a friggin’ MUSICAL in London this week and we can only pray that it does so well there, that it comes to Broadway. The producers have managed to cut the script down to a mere 3.5 hours (whatever, that’s like a mini-marathon of Keeping Up With The Kardashians) and the musical’s writer says she stuck more to Margaret Mitchell’s original story than the movie. “The film reflected Depression-era values and completely ignored many things in the novel,” Martin said. “[Scarlett O'Hara] is madly heroic in all she does. Her experience, I think, will resonate with any woman.” We certainly give a damn about it! [CNN] Keep reading »
Lip Taken Out Of Service
The 670,000 women in the British service industry won’t let you call them sweetheart — or baby, or darling, or sweet cheeks, or even honey. Just like the women in 9 to 5 sans the ball-gagged boss, Women and Equalities Minister Harriet Harman is putting an end to womanizing in overlooked workplaces. Minister Harman has used her new position to create a statute that will require bar, restaurant, hotel, and even gym managers to be responsible for protecting their female employees from sexual harassment. Since service industry jobs are known for their client lip service, the change is expected to cost British companies 10 million pounds to enforce, according to the government office. So while sexist comments might make the employees feel cheap, the repercussions certainly aren’t. Keep reading »
Romance On TV: The Bachelor Is Back And He’s British!
This is how devoted I am to The Frisky — I am actually going to watch the bajillionth season of The Bachelor and recap each week’s totally painful episode. Just kidding! Seriously, I’m psyched, I love “The Bach” — what an effing trainwreck. This season, the big man is a British moneybags named Matt Grant and I must admit, unlike the last few dorks they’ve had on the show, he’s kind of hot and seems pretty smart and dapper and jolly (you know, British). Obviously, the dude is just trying to get my hopes up that he’ll actually pick the smart, interesting, funny girl in the end, not the bimbo, but I think we all know he’ll probs let me down. Keep reading »
Now This Is Belly Dancing
Gaining weight often makes women better dancers because they have something to shake, if you know what we mean. Case in point: Belly dancers — and a London ballet company couldn’t agree more. Balletlorent is looking for 12 pregnant women to join the cast of their next production “MaEternal.†The Artistic Director, Liv Lorent, who is pregnant herself, says, “You can’t get a 25-year-old size 8 ballet dancer type body to move with the weight, the gravitas or the sheer cheerful spirit a pregnant woman.†So although no dance experience is necessary, you better bring it to the audition because there might be a lot of celeb competition with everyone, from Jessica Alba to Minnie Driver, being knocked up. [Reuters] Keep reading »
Gone With The Wind
Some men get really creative when it comes to proposing marriage. My dad, for example, had a restaurant freeze my mother’s engagement ring in an ice cube and put it in her water glass. Luckily, she isn’t one of those people who likes to chew on ice. Well, Hajji, a London man, wanted his proposal to be truly spectacular, and he concealed a $12,000 engagement ring inside a helium balloon so that he could literally pop the question. An unfortunate turn of events followed. A gust of wind blew the balloon out of his hand. Hajji spent two hours searching for the ring-filled balloon, but he finally had to break the news to his girlfriend. After hearing that he lost her engagement ring, the Hajji’s girlfriend was pissed. “Now she is refusing to speak to me until I get her a new ring,” he said. She sounds kind of like a diva, Hajii, maybe you should pick up a new girl instead of a new ring. Unless you have $12,000 more to blow away. [Reuters] Keep reading »
Student Sex Workers Rising Across The Pond
College students in the UK are getting sick of working their butts off and struggling to make loan payments, so more are turning to sex work in order to pay off their debt more quickly (while it may be quick, it’s certainly not painless). The number of students working in the sex industry has risen from about 4 percent in 1999 to an estimated 8 percent today, according to research by Kingston University in London. “What we can definitely say is that as long as student debt increases, so will the numbers of students entering the [sex] industry,” said Dr. Ronald Roberts, the psychologist leading the research. “Since the introduction of tuition fees in 1998 there has been an increase in students undertaking this kind of work.†It’s sad, but true that these women could work a legitimate job for much less, but, as Catherine (not me), who works as a prostitute, said, “I choose to have a job where you can make a lot of money in a few hours and then actually have time to do my uni[versity] work properly.” Study hard! [Times Online] Keep reading »
