The last couple of days have all been about the moobs

Let's review the last couple of days:

• Yesterday - shopping with sparky Ma in Kingston and a trip to the cinema with Marcosy.
• Today - shopping in Londinium with Marcosy.

Does anyone get the idea I like shopping?

So yesterday was cool. Sparky Ma and I got to Kingston pretty early, had a pre-shopping coffee, then hit the stores. Sadly, my recent dry spell of shopping did not seem to want to come to an end; yes, I bought the new Maximo Park album (very good, definitely a step-up from their first album, if not quite as immediate), the Klaxons album (WOO-WOO! It's nu-rave and it rocks!), The Prestige on DVD (awesome movie), and some soap, but aside from that I couldn't see anything that grabbed my fancy. Which is a shame, 'cos I was right in the mood for buying some summery clothes.

Evening came and I raced over to Uxbridge to meet Marcosy for our delayed-by-a-week-due-to-a-crisis-at-work screening of My Big Fat Sweaty Greek Battle, AKA 300. As I've probably bitched about before, I wasn't really too sure I wanted to actually see this movie. Yes, the trailer looked amazing in that very stylized graphic novel stylee, but there's a vast difference between a two minute trailer and a two hour movie. Still, I got it on an Orange Wednesday 2-f0r-1 deal so it was at the very least a cheap evening out.

So the world waits with baited breath - what did I think? Well let it out, world, I'ma gonna tells ya! To be honest… I thought it was OK. Yes, it was visually stunning, and not over-powering in the same way that I found Sin City to be. But, and this is a big but ("I like big butts and I can't deny…"), I thought some of the acting was atrocious to the point of it being unintentionally funny, Gerald Butler was so obviously Scottish, and it was faaaaaar toooooooo loooooooong for my liking (seriously, if they'd not done all those slow-motion action sequences the film would've been, like, a good 30 minutes shorter). I think Marcosy summed it up best, though, when he said that once you've seen one battle sequence where a sweaty Spartan in his leather pants* whacks a Persian dude with a sword you've pretty much seen them all. And the fact of the matter is there were loads of them.

But, kudos to the filmmakers for making an interesting film. It's definitely something of an achievement to have made it so visually close to the original graphic novel, but I'm not sure I would be bothered to sit through it again. Unlike Sunshine, which was awesome. GO SEE SUNSHINE!

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Regardless of what we thought about the film, Marcosy and I both had interesting experiences in the cinema. He was plagued by a dude with a massive head who sat in front of him and blocked his view, which is something of an achievement bearing in mind that the seating was quite steeply angled, while I was seated next to a woman who a) virtually placed her face in my groin while she wriggled out of her jacket (I resisted the temptation to say "while you're down there…"), b) slightly snuggled up to me at one point, c) crinkled sweet wrappers throughout the film, and d) shoved her arse in my face when she got up to leave. I don't know what her boyfriend who was seated next to her thought about all this, but it kinda felt like we'd had a break-neck relationship for the duration of the movie.

Call me?

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Shopping in Londinium with Marcosy. I'll sum this up for you as quickly and succinctly as possible: absolute failure. Aside from two coffees and a juicy water, the only thing I bought was a freakin' travelcard. Goddamnit! I used to be so good at shopping - it was my superpower!

The most illuminating experience of the day came with a trip to the new Abercrombie and Fitch store just off Saville Row. Marcosy had gone there on the day it opened, but said it was *s0* busy and wanted to go back for another look. He told me it was like a nightclub. But with clothes.

Intriguing…

Anyway, as Marcosy is prone to exaggeration and whimsy, I didn't quite believe this description. A shop is a shop, right? Well, erm, no…

We were greated at the door by some dude smiling inanely and asking us how we are. Now this is a bit of a bug-bear with me. Unless I actually know the person working in the shop, I don't want them to talk to me unless I initiate conversation. They're also not to look me in the eye. I gave this dude the benefit of the doubt, though, and walked into the store to be confronted by…

Now, I saw enough half-naked men in 300 to last me a lifetime, so I was understandably a tad confused as to why there were two half-naked dudes standing in the entrance to the Abercrombie and Fitch store. "That's what they're employed to do," said Marcosy, as if it was perfectly rational for two half-naked men to just be standing in the entrance to a shop**. God forbid Primark start using this promotional tactic…

The store itself is interesting to say the least. It's a very cool concept - yes, it is like a nightclub, all pounding music and really dark; so dark, in fact, that you can barely see the clothes. But maybe that's why… Y'see, behind all the beautiful people working there, the nightclub ambience, and the like, lies the fact that, for me at least, the Abercrombie and Fitch range just seemed decidedly average. Average jeans, average polo shirts (admittedly in just about every colour under the sun), t-shirts, shirts, shorts, and hoodies. It was like Gap with the curtains drawn.

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Let's finish up with some photos.


Marcosy tried to get me to buy a life-size manga-stylee Princess Leia. I did not.


Who needs half-naked dudes when you can have a monkey with a football?


And just for Missy&Chrissy and T-Bird … THERE BE NO MULLET HERE!


*I tell you though, EVERY dude on the planet who goes to see that movie is going to go home, stand in front of the mirror in their pants, suck it in, clench up their stomach muscles, and regardless of what is actually reflected back at them is going to go "Hell yeah, you're one sexy bitch…"

**I'll admit, however, to wondering if they were supposed to be, like, some sort of Abercrombie-style guard, like the ones at Buckingham Palace. Where they just supposed to stand there, unflinchingly oblivious to everything and everyone around them, until they were relieved of duty and replaced with another? Intriguing… and worth investigating! Fifty quatloos to the first person to give 'em a nipple-twister and test the theory!