Monday, 13th April 2009

Me donnez le fruit!

Highly unusually, this holiday seems like it’s been going on for quite a while; this is possibly due to the equilibrium of my daily routine, which involves five hours of revision and then pissing about until around eleven thirty. As a result of this, I have managed to frighten myself over how much Maths I do not understand, how much Geography I have not learnt and how much stuff there is in To Kill A Mockingbird, but have also made it through 8 films, several books and many episodes of CSI, which my mother finds a horrifying thing to watch over lunch.

The worst films I watched were Shakespeare in Love (how it was nominated for anything was beyond me, let alone the feat of WINNING some of it) and Forces of Nature (yeah, turns out there’s a reason you’ve never heard of it), the former being an all-round blasphemy of the good name of Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth and the Tudor era in general (I’ll concede the costumes weren’t bad, but there’s nothing worse in a Tudor production than not even bothering to FEIGN an attempt at Tudor dialogue), the latter being the most bizarre thing I have ever seen Sandra Bullock in, with a fairly steady plot but random use of CGI to depict rain falling, a more random score, an even more random subplot and a supremely random ending involving a hurricane in the middle of Ben Affleck and Maura Tierney’s outdoors wedding and Sandra Bullock sitting in a tree with a little boy.

The most interesting film has to be Heathers, the box-office-fail which nevertheless became a cult classic and shoved Winona Ryder (of whom I am rather fond following Girl, Interrupted and her rendition of “Ohhh…poor Ray-Ray…” on Friends) further up the distastefully tacky, glittery ladder of fame. Described by Tina Fey as ‘the hardcore Mean Girls’, Heathers tells the story of Veronica Sawyer (Ryder) who is increasingly disenchanted with her membrship in the Heather clique (think Plastics of ’89) and falls in love with new boy JD, who is increasingly creepy and unstable. After they accidentally (Veronica, at least) poison Heather Chandler (think Regina George with large hair and a checked blazer), JD seems incapable of stopping himself from killing more popular bullies and Veronica seems incapable of stopping herself from forging the suicide notes for him. There were many ways this could have gone, and they did well to keep the true ending hidden for as long as they did, and the very end sequence in the school corridor was great, and at the same time I didn’t walk away thinking WOW. Truth be told, though this was hardcore and different and twisted as I like my entertainment to be, I preferred Mean Girls. 

Also revisited this holiday were Twilight (almost decent without the screaming teenaged girls), Zorro (both films, still silly and still awesome) and Mickey Blue Eyes (nothing new or more than mediocre but worth it for Hugh Grant’s attempt at a Mafioso ‘forgedda ’bout it!’ which comes out more Indian than Sicilian), among others. But I do not wish to give you the impression that I have frittered away my precious free hours with DVDs. No, I have also discovered (thanks Ricky) the rather entertaining website www.fmylife.com, on which various unfortunate human beings daily post the shit that happens them and invite you to vote either ‘Yep, your life is f***ed!’ or ‘You deserved that one!’ This may sound vaguely cruel, or at least a severe incitement to schadenfreude, but they put themselves up for it and it’s a less depressing reminder than News 24 of how much worse your life could be. Try it some time.

Apart from revision, sleep and meals, the remainder of my time has been largely – albeit regrettably – devoted to the consumption of fruit. As some of you may have realised (I think Joanna, Cloe, Maia and Mehdi have in particular been frightened by this vice at various points over the last year), I am a compulsive eater. I have so far in my near sixteen years failed to keep this under any kind of control beyond the restriction of my diet to fruit and meals for six days of the week. This may sound excessive, but if I tell you that on Saturday night I ate every piece of fruit in the house, causing my dad to hurry out and buy more, at 11pm, which I promptly ate within the hour (four plums, a box of strawberries and a bag of grapes, plus two boxes of raspberries my mother obtained), you will surely agree that it would not be prudent to expose myself to chocolate or other such indulgences on a regular basis. If anyone has any suggestions as to coping with this problem, please comment. My parents can’t afford to keep me here another week unless things let up.

Finally, I would like to report with great sadness in my heart that it appears unlikely that I will finish Miss D’s Year 9 reading list before study leave. I really do think it would have been possible for me to fit 4 new books into my rigid system between now and then, if it weren ‘t for the fact that Waterstone’s does not currently stock a single one of these classics. However, as the spurt of April birthdays send me to my homeland tomorrow, perhaps I shall find this oversight corrected. One can only hope.