Lying Louise

Lying Louise visits the cinema

 

Seeing as Monsoon season has descended upon the capital Lying Louise decided to pursue activities that involved a roof and it was this reasoning that led me to the cinema one horrible autumnal looking day.  I haven’t been to the cinema in time, mainly because I prefer to illegally stream my films in the comfort of my own home which doesn’t smell like feet and the floors are most definitely not sticky- I have lost many a slip on shoe to those sticky bastard cinema floors!  Also I have a very short attention span, and by the time I’ve reached the dusty husks of my popcorn (usually by the third advert), I am ready to go home.

However I decided to brush aside my doubts and head to the cinema anyway. The journey there should have been warning enough for the horrors that awaited me- I stacked it on the super slippy floor of the train station and bashed my coccyx. This was EXTREMELY painful and it’s still a wee bit tender now- I may have to go to the doctors, but only if they guarantee they’ll prescribe me one of those rubber rings to sit in for a couple of weeks which has always looked like a laugh. Anyway like a true champ I picked myself off the floor and after a very awkward journey and some interesting sitting positions I made it to the talking picture show only to find the queue for the popcorn was IMMENSE. I didn’t realise chewy stale popcorn was so popular? I also saw a really fat man buying the biggest thing of coke I have ever seen! It was bigger than my head! He also bought popcorn and nachos. I admire a man that fat who is not only still willing to show his fat self in public but to show it with no shame as he shovels carbs down his gullet! I bet he tells his friends ‘It’s glandular’ LOLZ.

For future reference I will bring my own supply of delicious sweeties from home. I’m not sure if the cinema operates the sweetie/food equivalent of airport security to frisk people attempting to bring in contraband items, but I have a trick up my sleeve in the form of an old jacket with ripped lining; perfect for hiding sweeties, and on many occasions during my pikey student days, the odd bottle of voddy to sneak into crap clubs.  Anyway after being charged extortionate amounts for my usual kids tray by some verruca who wasn’t quite at cognitive development, I headed off to watch…wait for it…ONE DAY. Yaaaaaaaaawn. I had no choice in the matter honestly officer! I would like to be able to say something about the film but I got bored and my mind drifted to other things (Zombie apocalypse, alien abductions- the usual. The seats were surprising comfy and it was all cosy and dark so you can’t really blame me). The one thing I did learn from One Day was that Shergar (the Irish racehorse supposedly kidnapped by the IRA in the 1980’s) is actually alive and well! He trots onto screen in the opening scene swishing his mane and acting under the pseudonym Anne Hathaway.

                

 

Above left- Shergar in Anne Hathaway dress up, Right: as he was in his racing days.

Here’s what they should have included in the film to have kept my attention longer than five minutes:

• Cyborgs- Someone (preferably Anne/Shergar) turns into some sort of cyborg/robotic being.
• Machine gun shootout similar to the end scene in Scarface- actually Tony Montana should have a cameo in the film.
• Maybe a singing/dancing number. Like that last one in Grease but less camp. Strictly no John Travolta or flying cars. If my first point is adhered to maybe they could do some robotic type dance! A cool dance off against a nasty group of people who made insensitive comments about the others being poor or not having a mum or something should also be included with the baddies getting their proverbials kicked.  Sort of like when my friend Angela had a dance off with some scary girls in a club once (although she slipped over on a spilt drink and cut her leg open and we had to take her to A&E- true story)
• More dogs- lots more dogs. Preferably overweight ones with smooshed faces and breathing difficulties. Actually the whole cast should be replaced by dogs in wigs. Anne Hathaway would be played by a nervous twitching Labrador with red leaky eyes and Jim Strugess would be an afghan hound.
• The whole film should be approximately 100% shorter.

Lying Louse visits: Dirt at the Welcome Collection

The dirt exhibition is being held at the Welcome Collection on Euston Road and is an exhibition about, err… dirt. More specifically the dirt of everyday life. With this is mind I was expecting something incredibly filthy and some really grim looking artefacts.

I was also hoping there would be a gift shop that would sell some vials and jars of mud with worms and beetles swimming about in them, but no such luck.

I wasn’t any luckier upon actually entering the exhibition; yeah there was some dust, some faeces and (my favourite) some old skool cloudy urine, but it was all pretty tame. Also, if you’re going to put a sign on the door warning visitors that the exhibition contains human remains then actually get some! A bit of dust in a Roman urn does not count as real human remains in my eyes.

I was at least hoping for some stuff preserved in formaldehyde. The booklet yammered on about dirt being such a big thing in our everyday life but we’re too scared to confront it, blah blah blah, but human remains aren’t a huge part of my everyday life (this might not be an important point they’re trying to make, but I only read the first line and then used it as a napkin so I can’t actually read what the main deal was - I bet it’s still shit though). 

After speed walking around the whole thing in about 20 minutes and deciding it was cack I went back to the office and when people asked me about it I told slightly different version of events; ‘Oh my God it was great! It was basically a giant room full of mud! There were worms and snails and other gross looking shit crawling around in it and piles of dust!’

Not all was lost though; upon leaving I saw a very smelly, dirty tramp clothed in rags bending down to pick up some old fag butts off the floor, so that made up for it. Thank god it was free.

To make up for wasted time I made up my own facts about dirt and passed them off to unsuspecting chums as being included in the exhibition. Here are some that the Dirt exhibition should have included;

• Dirt was discovered by Lord Hillingdon in 1937
• The standard hoover bag contains approximately three borrowers
• Mud is the main component in many a refreshing tonic, such a reef and blue WKD.

A biography

I once got a key ring from the zoo that said the name Louise has Germanic origins and means ‘female warrior,’ while in French it means ‘victorious in battle’- this makes me sounds like some mental Xena Warrior type person, which I would only partly agree with. So in light of my zoo key ring being a total load of shit (incidentally it was not only factually incorrect but also shoddily made - it got all steamed up on the inside), I decided to consult my biographer and lifelong friend Harvey Wellbeloved to draft a quick low-down on the milestones of my life and document some of my achievements.

‘Louise found notoriety and fame in the 1980s when she tirelessly worked using her arsenal of diplomatic finesse to bring about the end of the Cold War. The good people of Berlin (east and west) celebrated with posters of her face and erected statues while the Americans sent a cake.

‘Louise attempted to slip back into obscurity and continue her humanitarian and political works unnoticed whilst working part-time in her local branch of Wimpy. But, alas, this was not be; after performing emergency open heart surgery on a commuter on a crowded rush hour tube train using nothing but a free issue of Shortlist magazine (with Tom Cruise gracing the cover), a pack of flaming hot monster munch and a plastic spoon. The media went crazy and thus  crowds of adoring fans flocked.

‘Due to her popularity, grace and elegance the step into show biz seemed only natural and soon Louise was presenting a new, sleeker version of the old classic (originally made famous by two of Louise’s adoring fans, Cheryl Baker and Chris Akabusi) of Record Breakers in which Louise herself broke several records (including consuming the most fudge in one sitting and creating several of the world’s largest “Art Attacks” with Neil Buchanan – the two had a famous falling-out the following year during a particularly heated debate about university top-up fees during a live episode of Jonathan Dimblebys “Any Questions” on BBC Radio 4).

‘In between breaking records and co-ordinating humanitarian relief efforts In Darfur, Louise starred and co-wrote the BAFTA winning series ‘Lully Little Shandy,’ based on the life and death of Tupac Shakur.  It was an instant hit, with Stephen Fry declaring it ‘a gritty and emotional masterpiece’.

‘Louise now spends most of her time translating Ancient Greek epic poems into Japanese haikus and tending to her show guinea pigs (of which she has over 70 – a craze which started when her good friend Mickey Rourke bought her one to thank her for saving his life after an accidental drug overdose at a Hollywood party for which Wimpy were catering, at Jonny Depp’s personal request). She likes turkey dinosaurs and animals that look like old men and is always grateful for any donations of either.’