Raw Talent.

This blog is dedicated to Sophie Gibbons, Rozalyn Hughes, Hannah Al-Shemmeri, Rhi Pardoe, Vicky Tillman and Sarah Pottinger, who are enormous fans of the boys in question.


There are two names that have sparked controversy and excitement over the last couple of weeks. These names have redefined Marmite's 'You either love it or hate it' theory. These names, are of course, John and Edward.

They may not be the best of singers, but their personality and performances are what give them their great likability; along with their catchphrase 'I'm John, I'm Edward, and together we're John and Edward'. The Grimes twins have injected a much needed comedy jab in the X factor's left arse cheek, leaving the next few weeks to be filled with cheesy dancing, and a colossal dispute between lovers and haters of John and Edward.

Typically, the show is divided between good singers, really good singers, bad singers and really bad singers, but John and Edward are a category of their own. The fact that people are causing such a stir is quite pathetic. The twins are obviously not going to win, but their entertainment value is priceless. People think that John and Edward are preventing those with talent from having a chance of winning, but in reality, the contestants in question would eventually lose to those with more talent later on in the competition, so what is that harm in John and Edward?

My favorite piece of publicity about the twins has come from The Guardian, where Stuart Heriatage shows his support for John and Edward: '

They were all too busy telling sad stories about their childhoods to
try to win the audience over. But not John and Edward. John and Edward
don't have childhoods. They just exist. They were here long before us.
And they'll be here lon...g after we've gone. John and Edward are magical'

From the moment that my sister and I saw the twins rolling down the hill at Louis' house in Italy, they stole our hearts. Since then, our love for John and Edward has grown increasingly, and after their performance of Britney Spears' 'Oops I did it again' last night, I was left wondering whether it is possible to love them more than I do now.


The dance routines, the red PVC blazers and the part where John rescued a necklace that the old woman threw into the ocean and gave it to Edward were all immense contributors to the stunning performance, which made me laugh so much that I found it hard to breathe at times.

Blond boy bands from Ireland with mediocre voices seem to be very successful, if you take Westlife as an example, so I predict that John and Edward are going to go far. And thank God, because I cannot wait to go on of their gigs, which I think will be the best experience of my life!

Inner lip tattoo

On Thursday, I got a tattoo on my lower inner lip. I had wanted to get this tattoo for quite some time, so after pay day had come round, I had no excuse.
I lay down on the chair-bed-a-ma-bob not knowing what to expect, which was the most nerve-wrecking part. Every time I have had a piercing I've been completely terrified, but for the first time ever, I was excited about the pain. It sounds weird and completely ridiculous, but I've built up some kind of pain threshold when it comes to piercings, a pain threshold that becomes non-existent when I fall over or walk into a door.

The tattooist clamped both sides of my lower lip, resting the bottom of the clamps on my chest so that my lower lip remained inside out. The tattoo itself took hardly any time at all, and to my surprise, didn't hurt one bit. If anything, the clamp was the most painful part.

Having an inner lip tattoo feels like the part of a lip piercing before it begins to hurt, except constantly, until the design is complete. My lip swelled up for about an hour and a half, causing talking a little more difficult. Two hours later and my lip was back to normal size!

As happy as I was with the incredibly quick healing time, I was very disappointed with how much my tattoo has faded in this short space of time. It is now Saturday, two days after having the tattoo, and my heart outline has gone from this:


to this:

There must be a way of preventing the ink from fading so quickly, because having to go back to the tattooist regularly will be far too expensive to maintain! If anybody has any tips on the matter, please email me on kiki88_76@hotmail.com
Thank you!

Reading Festival 2009

As I arrived at Reading Festival, I was determined that I would not get as horrifically intoxicated as I had in Download festival. The idea of less severe hangovers and a clearer memory of the experience were just the beginning of the bonuses, along with not having to carry heavy crates of cider and less use of the horrid festival toilets (which, in our case, meant the bushes, in front of hundreds of happy campers). Yes, drinking less and saving money seemed like the perfect idea, but after losing my sleeping bag and ticket, the whole tee total nonsense seemed more ridiculous than taking style tips from Katie Price.

Luckily, around fifteen minutes later, Dixx found my ticket on the floor. Of course, during that quarter of an hour, between being completely terrified and shaking more violently than I knew I was capable of, cracking open my first can of Strongbow seemed more rewarding than winning a gold medal in the Olympics.

Even though this was my seventh or eighth festival in total, I am still as naive as I was at my first Reading experience four years ago; I never learn. Beginning to drink heavily at 9:30AM, not eating anything and doing vodka jelly shots always seems like a great idea. If people do not join in, we tell them to 'Man Up' and continue to pour gallons of cider down our throats.
The process brings great enjoyment and laughs, partially because we are hilarious human beings, but mostly because we know how to have fun.




Watching Funeral for a friend in the pouring rain sounds about as fun as a funeral, but with the correct amount of cider and Roz bursting into hymn, replacing 'you're not singing anymore' with 'Bread of Heaven', it is in fact brilliant. Deftones' entire performance blew me away, leaving me in awe with a permanent smile from ear to ear throughout. Chino Moreno has the most fascinating voice, which is unlike anyone else in the mainstream metal category. Their energy on stage seizes your attention and leaves you wanting more and more.

Friday was clearly the best day of the festival with amazing performances by Leftover Crack, Florence and the Machine and of course, the incredible Jamie T. Jamie T's performance was definitely in my top 3 of the weekend. With the combination of drunkenly kicking some man, giving wedgies, the man in question apologising and generally dancing and having an amazing time screaming 'Laaaandaaaaan' with Sophie, Roz and Vicky, it was one of the best gigs of all time.

A breif chat with Chino Moreno, the vocalist from my favourite band 'Deftones' left me skipping around the festival like a child on Christmas day.


For the final band of the evening, we had the choice between Kings of Leon, Billy Talent and Faith No More. I love Billy Talent, but there was no competition. Mike Patton comes on top every time.

There's a reason why Kings Of Leon had to tell the Leeds crowd 'We've only played 4 songs and you've already kicked Readings ass'. Actually there's a few. Their new album is rubbish, they've sold out, become completely commercialized and they were on the same time as two other bands that are a hundred times better than them. The reason why 'Leeds kicked Reading's ass' is because people in Reading have standards, nobody went to see Kings Of Leon! We have taste, thanks. Who in their right minds would go and see a bunch of over-styled, pretentious wankers when they could be watching the greatest band of all time.. Faith No More?!

Fuck you, Kings Of Leon.


Faith No More has the same stage set as they had in Download: Red velvet curtains draping accross the stage and Mike Patton supporting slicked back hair and a red suit with rhinestones. My Goodness, he looked fine. He may be 20 years older than me, but I want to marry him.

Faith No More played all of the classics: RV, Just a Man, Easy, Midlife Crisis and.. err.. the Eastenders themetune. Which waa brilliant. This, of course, was my favourite performance of all time.


Saturday was full of fun and games. We missed Municipal Waste because we were lazy and wanted to stay at the camp site and get a head start on the drinking with our cans, then misjudged how long their set was, getting there too late. Although this was tragic, we still managed to score some free vodka jelly shots by convincing the man who sold them that he had conned us. Looking back, I doubt that there was any vodka i that jelly..

We also witnessed a dance off between a banana and a gingerbread man - one of the greatest moments in history, I'm sure. The gingerbread man won, but then again, his oponent was a banana.


Once again, Weatherman Dixx got the weather forecast wrong again, which left us all desperate for Derrick the weather, Wales' finest gent.

Punk and Ska gigs always seem to be the most fun, and Mad Caddies was certainly no exception. Vicky, Sophie, Roz and I were like a bunch of scool girls, with our combination of giggling, skanking, morriss dancing and the can can. Always a recipie for success. To our dissapointment, they failed to play our favourite song, Weird Beard, so we did what we knew best: went to the bar.

There's nothing more annoying than an inconsiderate waster pushing passed you, spilling your drink and not offering an apology, so before the Prodigy were due to come on stage, we taught Reading Festival some manners.
Every time someone would shove past us, we'd shout 'Excuse you!', 'Sorry!' or 'Manners cost nothing!'. Every time, we would all dread the reaction, but at the same time, we found it hillarious. This kept us busy until The Prodigy delivered a set which not only blew our minds but took us back to the early 90s where the rave scene was in full swing.

It is amazing how The Prodigy are a group of fourty year olds, jumping around a stage singing the same songs as they did the first time round, but instead of being embarassing and poor, their sound and performance was still as fresh and impressive as it was when they were when they were in their twenties and starting out.
Sunday means one thing, and one thing only. Sunday dinner, Mel's Sunday Beef, Cinio Dydd Sul. And how better to celebrate than a giant yorkshire pudding with sausage, mash and gravy inside? Or a hog roast? Delicious.

We tried leaving it as late as possible to start drinking, as we don't do things by halves: when we go shopping, we buy in bulk and when we drink, we get smashed. Leaving it until the evening to start drinking meant that we would remember more of the bands we paid so much to see.

Vampire Weekend had a great sound and created a happy atmosphere with their cheerful, fun tunes. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs followed with their incredible, quirky performance, leaving everyone wonder what Karen O would do next, never failing to surprise the audience with her outrageous yet brillaint costumes. Classics such as 'Pin' mixed in with the new 'Heads Will Roll' kept the crowd dancing and screaming for more.

Bloc Party were incredible, keeping the balance between dancing songs, ballads and Indie songs perfect for a festival. Their new track, 'One More Chance' experiments with trance beats and old school dance piano playing. With Reading festival known for appreciating the bridge bringing alternative and dance music together, it proved to be a hit, promising that Bloc Party will be returning to festival near you very soon.


And it was time to see the last band of Reading Festival 2009, which is always a slightly emotional time, so choosing the best possible band to end the festival with is crucial.
Fuck Radiohead. There was no way that I was bringing my festival to a close with a boring, slow performance, guaranteeing the audience to end up slitting their wrists by the end of the set. No. We saw Lostprophets. And it was amazing.

Lostprophets gave such an energetic, epic performance, that even Roz enjoyed. (Roz being a closet Lostprophets fan, who has denied her love for far too long). It was a shame that they didn't end the set with the Welsh national anthem, like they had previously done in last year's Download festival, so we compensated by singing 'Sosban Fach' and 'Bread Of Heaven'. Pretty standard, really.

Bring on next year's Reading festival, mine and Vicky's 5 year Reading festival anniversary. Now that's what I call loyalty.

Suicide Girls - Eww.

'Glamour Modeling' has always been a losing battle in the debate of good taste. When Katie Price reveals all on a cover of such trashy publications such as Nuts or Zoo, nobody comments about how well the styling of the photo shoot was managed, how excellent the lighting works with the camera setting, making the model in question remind them of a damsel in distress of a political prison, therefore acting as a symbolism of the character 'Julia' in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

No, the usual critic pays no attention to these details which make photography such exquisite art forms, they are merely interested on the assets on show.
Suicide Girls is a soft-core porn site where members pay to look at pictures of the models. The Suicide Girls upload professional and self-taken photographs onto their profiles where the members can look at the pictures and comment the models.

Suicide Girls is just another take on glamour modeling, only a version that is more Americanized with a 'Myspace' influence. The label "Suicide Girls" is given to disguise the fact that it is just a website with glamour modeling, attempting to justify the trashy industry that made Katie Price a household name.

Perhaps my view on the whole debate is more traditional. I like to think that the biggest selling point of the website should be kept private, or at least to imagination. I find it degrading and the words 'sell out' spring to mind. I'm not a feminist, and I don't share the views of a nun. I don't feel that girls should be covered up from head to toe, but perhaps the rebellion against Nineteenth century regulations where women weren't allowed to show their bodies has escalated to the point where it is now tasteless.

I feel that nudity is perfectly acceptable in art, as it is used in a different context to the cheap industry that is glamour modeling. Nudity can be conveyed is a tasteful way; for example the photo shoot for I-D magazine in which Daisy Lowe and William Cameron Jr. appear without clothing, yet the photographs are in good taste.

In conclusion, Suicide Girls is merely just a tacky Myspace cast-off, desperately trying to justify itself as cultured modeling. I appreciate that the concept is 'just good fun' to the models, I just hope that Suicide Girls evolves into something refined.

Download festival 2009

Leaving Cardiff on the Wednesday morning was exciting. We laughed at the fact that Becca lives opposite a shop called 'S&M Minimart' (which sold milk and newspapers rather than whips and chains) and called in Tesco for vitamins and paper cups. Whilst every other car on the journey to Download was listening to metal, Roz, Beca and I listened to the delights of Tom Jones and Soulja Boy (Travis Barker remix). We're big Tom Jones fans and become overly patriotic at Download, which is why every night we'd get drunk and sing Tom Jones and Max Boyce songs along with Sosban Fach and the national anthem.

By the Thursday night, it felt like we had been there for about a week, which caused Beca to announce that 'Sometimes I forget why I'm here'. Oh yes, the weekend was full of excellent Beca quotes which had everyone in hysterics.

Friday was spent at the Main stage all day, the lineup was amazing! We started off watching Billy Talent, who Beca, Roz and I absoloutley love. I always find it funny that Benjamin Kowalewicz sounds the same when he talks as he does when he sings, I saw them in Reading Festival in 2007 and heared someone say 'He sounds like a cartoon duck!' which made me chuckle. A fantastic performance never the less from these Canadian four piece, which was a superb start to the day.

Killswitch Engage were excellent but it was the next band that we waited for with colossal anticipation. It was the return of the one, the only, Limp Bizkit. I was not dissapointed. You'd think that the four year break from performing would weaken the band but they were far from weak. Classics such as 'Break Stuff', 'My Generation', 'Rolling' and 'Take A Look Around' made me feel like I was in year 8 of comprehensive school again, and I fucking loved it. Their cover of George Micheal's faith is one of my favourite songs of all time, so seeing this performance at Download was quite the treat.

Typically, Korn played all of my favourite songs when I was quing for the toilet, but it was okay because next was Faith No More. I'd honestly marry Mike Patton. I know he's 41 but my goodness, he's cool. He wore a red suit and the stage was decorated with red velvet curtains. The entire performance was amazing and their cover of Lady Gaga's Poker face was brilliant, I fucking love Faith No More.

Saturday morning started with a hair of the dog. I love nothing more that a warm can of Strongbow as soon as I wake up, and it is perfectly acceptable at a festival. I'm pretty sure that we just chilled out at the campsite for the majority of the day, with the exception of Mel, the lone ranger who would be equipped with a rucksack, a home made timetable (highlighting the bands she was going to see) and probably a fucking compass, leaving the nest at 11am sharp to cram in as many bands into her day as physically possible.
Well, the rest of us sat down, cracked open a can and spent some quality time with Bert. It was brilliant. We finally left the campsite and wandered over to the bands at around 5ish, and the first act was Pendulum. If they didn't have that irritating cunt of an MC, they would have been alright. They played 'Tarantula' for the first time ever, which is my favourite song of theirs, but the lack of volume and enthusiasm left me bored. We wandered over to Marilyn Manson after this because not only is he meant to be marvelous entertainment, but Roz wanted to see if he was really that tall. And Jesus Jenkins, he was tall. Shame about the performance though.

With Pendulum being such a K Hole of entertainment, I wondered if all drum and bass acts would be as shit. The Prodigy, however, blew my fucking mind. They combined classics such as 'Breathe' and 'Smack My Bitch Up' with their latest masterpiece 'Omen' and truly delivered an orgasm of a performance. We watched a bit of Slipknot after this, then retired to the campsite, to devour a crate or four.

Since Roz and I had been drinking heavily all day, I failed. I threw up and went to bed before midnight. FAIL.

Due to the previous night's results, I decided not to drink on Sunday so that I could enjoy Journey in pure sobriety, and remember at least one act.
What a good idea, because Journey were AMAZING. I remember looking at Roz at one point and seeing her smiling from ear to ear, jumping on her tip toes, shaking her fists like maracas. Like a child meeting Santa. The dance that I, Becca and Roz had made up for 'Wheel in the sky' was a winner, and really caught on.
We hadn't realized that the original singer had died, and had been replaced by a younger man from a Journey tribute band, so a rather shocked Becca pointed out when the young Filipino entered the stage 'Hahaha.. He's Asian... he's Chinese... And Now... Straight out of the Chinese shop.. It's what's his name!'

Becca doesn't mean to be racist.I promise.

Papa Roach were so phenomenal that Rhi was literally frothing at the gash. To my disapontment, they didn't play 'She Loves Me Not', but such classics as 'Last Resort' and 'Getting Away With Murder' certainly compensated.

On whole, the best bands of the weekend had to be Faith No More, Journey, Limp Bizkit, Billy Talent and Papa Roach. Roll on Reading Festival!
xoxo

Listen to Faith No More's cover of Poker Face:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBE3CTcNa8I

Extreme Body Modification

I'm a big fan of body modification, I've had my lip pierced in 3 places, septum, nose, scaffolding and so on. I'm even getting a tattoo on the inside of my lip, which to some people with more traditional views on life (for example my mother, "Take that bloody
thing out of your nose, you look ugly and stupid") find repulsive. But even I have a limit.

Over the last few months, more and more people are telling me that they're getting their tongue split. Since the tongue is a big muscle, it can be split and then the two halves move separately.
It looks bloody horrible. Do these people have lizards as fashion icons? I would personally prefer to look like Serena from Gossip girl, not an iguana with a freak show tongue. Honestly, who wants to look like this man? (above) I'd be terrified if I bumped into this chap in my local Wetherspoons. I understand that people want it to improve things in the bedroom, but is it really worth enduring such colossal pain and looking like something that has escaped from the circus?

I'm also baffled at why people get plastic surgery to get their ears to resemble those of a pixie's.
I first came across this strange phenomena during an episode of BBC3's 'Snog Marry Avoid'. A neon loving elf wannabe had plastic surgery to get pixie ears. I find this kind of body modification ridiculous. I decided the other day that I no longer wanted lip piercings, so I took them out and they're gone. I decided that now I've finished University, I've grown out of them, but if this girl comes to the same conclusion as I did in a few years, she's stuck looking like a woodland reject. No matter how much she likes it now, all of the attention she gets won't matter at all when she's 35 and full of regret.

God, I'm starting to sound like my mother.

I really want Jeremy Kyle to do a special on this topic. I bet at least half of the guests will say 'I like it because it makes me more individual and non conformist'. Its like goths who all say that they dress the way they do to be different, and all end up looking the same with their Marilyn Manson t-shirts and their long leather coats. Cheer up goths.