"I've just had my roots done." "Who by? Hellen Keller?"

Once upon a time there was a show called Footballers' Wives. It was full of interesting acting, mental plots, fake tan and bitchiness. It was brilliant for three series, before being quite a lot less so for two more.

Amazing things that happened in Footballers' Wives:

• A pair of breasts being set on fire.
• An hermaphrodite baby.
• A nurse having sex with a man in a coma.
• Lots of catfights.
• A swapped baby being covered with fake tan to disguise the fact that he's not actually asian.
• A dead body in a swimming pool.
• Plenty of instances where the plot demanded the cast to be in the shower.
• Death-by-vigorous-shagging-after-having-your-heart-pills -secretly-swapped-with-viagra.
• Death-by-being-knocked-off-a-building-with-a-champagne- bottle.
• Death-by-not-eating.
• Death-by-being-mistakenly-shot-with-a-rifle-by-your- teammate.
• Death-by-being-smothered-by-a-dog.
  
• A gang of triads sticking a pet dog in a curry.
• A distraught mother digging up her dead baby's grave with a champagne bucket.
• Fake tan, spiked with Acid.
• Voodoo witchdoctors.
  
• Various themed weddings (Egyptian, fairytale etc...).
• Joan Collins turning up in series 5, as a love rival to Tanya (above left), the show's greatest character.
  
• A coke addict's nose falling out.
• A hot air balloon crash landing into the lion enclosure of a safari park.

Rather excitingly, the American remake is gathering pace. Though it'll probably lack some of the cheap charm and shock value of the original series, a larger writing team might mean that it doesn't run out of steam after only 20 or so episodes. Bryan Singer has a track record of being involved with very good things, although the presence of an Ugly Betty writer makes me worry slightly.

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Bits. And pieces. But mostly bits. Well, words. Arranged into sentences and perhaps paragraphs.

- I am very excited about the next Harry Potter book. I do not like walking past Smiths anymore, because the windows are plastered with posters telling us to pre-order it. I firstly do not understand why anybody would ever need to pre-order something that there'll be no shortage of whatsoever, and secondly the posters remind me about both the book itself and the fact that I'll have to wait until August 21st to read it.

- My throat hurts. It feels like I've swallowed a brillo pad. I haven't. My head hurts too and I've just started sneezing. Perhaps it's that bird flu that's in vogue right now.

- There is officially nothing left in Aberystwyth to do.

- The Caramel Apple Pie Ice Cream Sunday now at McDonalds is probably the best invention ever. At least since the I-Pod. It is basically a cup filled with ice-cream and caramel sauce, with an apple pie rammed into it.

- I only have 5 hours of lectures a week this semester. And two hours of that is watching a film, with a further 2 hours being all tense in a television studio, because the lady in charge apparently shouts a lot if we fuck up.

- I have fallen out of love with Neighbours. Mostly because I didn't watch over the christmas period, only to resume and find 15 new characters. Seriously, I didn't recognise anybody for the first 10 minutes of the episode.

- To fill the Ramsay Street shaped void, I am now addicted to Prison Break after getting my grabbers on the series one boxset. It is "more addictive than crack flavoured pringles", to quote every unoriginal bastard who heard that phrase and thought "I'm having that". It is quite a silly phrase really, because I'm sure it's more the chemicals in crack that make it so moreish. Does it even have a flavour? Or do you inject it? I'm not edgy and exciting enough to know about drugs, sorry. Anyway! Prison Break! God it's brilliant - there are so many twists and clever bits. Plus it makes me feel dead manly. I often find myself wanting to kick someone's face in after watching it.

- Roughly ALL of this past week has been spent with three other lovely people shooting a 10 minute short film for our course. It is a tale of stalking and dog killing and hallucenogenic-spiked milk. It is basically a load of old shit.

- Has everyone heard the new Avril Lavigne song? It is quite a joy to listen to once, but any repeat listens make it marginally less welcome than hearing your parents having sex in the next room.

- I am quite annoyed that I didn't bother with tickets for the next Girls Aloud tour, because it will apparently feature a Spice Girls medley (!!!) and Rogue Traders as a support act (!!!).


THAT IS ALL.


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Why don't people dance like this anymore?!

It's a crying shame.



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"This is written in a rollicking and knowing style that makes the reader complicit in its absurdities. The dialogue - which you use judiciously - raises a smile. What fun"


The above is what I got written on my returned assignment for the screenwriting part of my degree, complete with a first. Hooray! I want to be a scriptwriter when I grow up.


(Sorry, but I've run out of real life people to show this to, having thrust it in the face of every living thing in the Wales area.)

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Walk Away

What we can learn from this year's Comic Relief single:

- Girls Aloud shouldn't cover songs that were never very good in the first place, nor should they ever record without their usual producers Xenomania.
- Africa is probably fucked. Or at least, it won't get as many Wells and Vaccinations as it would have if the song was any good. This means that people will DIE.

What we can learn from this year's comic relief single-accompanying-video:

- Cheryl has hair like a circus horse.
- Celebrities aren't as supportive towards comic relief as they used to be. I wonder if even Keith From The Office, Sonia Off Eastenders, Little Miss Jocelyn and The Man From Green Wing thought they were the first choice to appear.
- Amelle is the best thing about the Sugababes, and makes me like them more. She's the newish one that looks like an angry bird (perhaps a kestrel), for those who don't know their Sugababes.
- Nicola is so pale that the camera has problems recording her face. This is either because the other jealous girls lock her in the cellar and make her do housework, OR because everytime she goes outside the sun sees her and thinks "I'm not good enough to even look at such a bastion of greatness" and fucks off behind a cloud.


I shall probably still buy it though, what with it being a charity affair. My mum's already sent me this year's red nose and I've been wearing it far too much. It is better than the last few Comic Relief's worth, because it is spongey and light so it can be worn for more than 5 seconds and wont give you a nose bleed. On the downside, it smells a bit like how I would imagine Asbestos to smell like.

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"Look! There goes Art Malik!"

I took this picture. Perhaps.

I've gone a bit Smeeta Smitten (Showbiz Kitten) as of late. The A-List stars are practically queuing up to walk past me and be in the same place as I am. And we're not talking about small fry soap stars, little known singers, ailing comedians and local weathermen here, we're talking proper A-list.

A few months back, I was at Crewe Station and none other than Charlie from Corrie walked past me. I very rarely see famous folk, so I wasn't too sure whether it was him or not, even though he had the exact same face and body. A text from a northern friend telling me that Crewe is in fact Up North confirmed that if definitely probably was him.


THEN! A few weeks later I was at another train station (Wolverhampton - what a shit tip!)
when none other than Carl Barat from The Libertines was standing on the platform opposite me. He was wearing a pretensious white trench coat type thing, and generally looking like a tit. I was staring very hard at his general face area once I recognised him, and got a filthy look back.

Then, YES! THERE'S MORE A-LIST SPOTTING! We were at a big charity (i.e. "a bit rubbish" but it's for sick kiddies so you can't moan) Christmas Party at the NEC in Birmingham, when I got to use the same toilet at the same time as the none-fit one from X-Factor runners up Journey South. By 'same toilet' I mean 'the same room filled with toilets and urinals', not the actual same toilet. That'd be a right old mess.


I am sorry if you have been blinded by the light shining from all the stars mentioned so far, but put on some extra thick sunglasses, because there are two more MASSIVE names to come.

One of these is Jasper Carrot, who we saw a few weeks back in a restaraunt in town. I don't know whether anywhere else knows who Jasper is, but he's pretty much the King of Birmingham. So much so that virtually everyone in the city has seen him a good 5 times. He was also at the aforementioned Christmas party, and I once went to see A Christmas Carol with my school and he was sat a few rows behind with his daughter - who may or may not have been the one from The Office and, er, Garfield 2. In fact it could have been a fancy women, but we just assumed it was his daughter.

Finally, last weekend we got to meet one of the biggest Welsh stars of the last few decades. He's up there with Catherine Zeta and Tom Jones. Yes, it's Derek The BBC Weatherman. He was signing a book to accompany his award winning tv show "Weatherman Walking", in which he wears lots of lovely jumpers and walks around Wales charming the elderley.
Derek is a very good weatherman because he gives you ideas about what to do depending on the weather. For instance, "I'm afraid it's going to be rather wet and windy this afternoon, so perhaps stay inside and read a nice book."

Blodwen and Derek:




Gareth and Derek:


I am pulling a really odd face there, and you can tell I was hungover. Therefore I'm rather worried about the fact that somebody who we didn't know took a picture of me meeting Derek. I just hope it was someone thinking that it was Derek the Weatherman meeting Charlotte Church or the fat one from Keane, rather than the local newspaper. I'm not going into any paper shops for a while, just in case.


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The Power Of Five

OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE, STOP BRINGING THE SPICE GIRLS INTO EVERYTHING.

At the request of Boz, here come 5 Useless Facts About Me:

(1) The first record (well, tape) I bought was "The Smurfs Go Pop". It was nothing short of amazing, containing the likes of "Our Smurfing Party" and "Smurfhillbilly Joe". I even bought the imaginatively titled follow up album, "The Smurfs Go Pop Again". It wasn't as good. That difficult second Smurf album, eh?

(2) I am addicted to chewing gum, it's my Smoking. I chew between one and two packs a day.

(3) I once NEARLY DIED on holiday in Menorca. On the first day I slipped and fell against a flimsy glass door, which swung back and shattered on the corner of a table, sending a shard plunging into my back and puncturing my left lung. What fun! I then got to spend the entire two weeks remaining in a Menorcan hospital, with the first week in intensive care.

(4) I cannot ride a bike, or do a gamboll.

(5) My names is Gareth Richard Douglas King.

Gareth = Welsh
Richard= English
Douglas= Scottish
King = Rules them all.

Amazing. It wasn't intentional, my parents aren't mental nationalists or anything.

If you have a blog, right five facts about yourself.

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Baby Baby Spice

Congratulations to The Bunton, because she now has a little baby in her tummy. It is especially good news, because it means she can now concentrate on breathing techniques and what colour she should paint the nursery, instead of the fact that nobody has bought her new album.

I think that now my uni degree is going tits up (I got 52% on an essay the other day - what a fucking cheek!), I shall open a child care centre for the spawn of 90s popstars. I could look after Geri's and Emma's, and mould them into the artists of the future. I shall also take Claire from Steps' forthcoming baby, though I won't give it as much attention. If Ginger Junior wants whatever Clare Junior is playing with, then it can fucking well have it.

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