Friday, January 05, 2007
New Year News
January 5th. 14.05
I am not certain why anniethegrannie has produced a list of female writers. The theme of the list was meant to be war stories. It just happened that owing to their different roles in wartime the stories were related by the active participants who were inevitably men. Anyway, thank you for the list; I doubt if I shall be reading any of them in the foreseeable future.
Germaine Greer has managed to annoy me again by making daft comparisons between Lauren Bacall and Catherine Deneuve. She claims that the former was not "a regular beauty" but was a "spunky working girl" who managed to be tough funny and sexy all at once. The latter was a "timeless beauty" whose "impassivety" is objectionable to Ms. Greer. Of course Greer sees all this from a woman's perspective but I do not think that she understands sex appeal. There is nothing impassive about Deneuve's mouth! (I see that the unsynthesised manifold had another appearance in the Guardian today.)
The two women are totally different but both have sex appeal in abundance. Why does the Guardian keep giving so much space to Ms. Greer, who, incidentally, has no sex appeal whatsoever. I would give you a list of ten without difficulty, and maybe I will one day, but two such creatures as Bacall and Deneuve should be enough for one morning. Instead, I offer ten actors , not necessarily the geatest, who have given great entertainment (and maybe have sex appeal to women):-
151. Humphrey Bogart
152. James Stewart
153. Cary Grant
154. Spencer Tracy
155. Burt Lancaster
156. Walter Matthau
157. Gary Cooper
158. Lee Marvin
159. Steve McQueen
160. Slim Pickens
I had quite a lot of contenders for a place on this list and there may be a second list at some time in the future, but in case anyone is going to try and influence selection I should remind you that there were good reasons why some were excluded and the choice is a personal one of actors who have provided great pleasure to me. John Wayne was excluded because he always played the same part- tough,
fearless and a bit of a bully. Fred Astaire always played the same part too but I look on him as a dancer,not an actor.
This week I have been mostly eating bacon because there were serious amounts in the fridge getting rather time expired. There also seem to be large amounts of sprouts left over from the Christmas period. A slight loss of taste due to a cold has made them much more palatable and they are quite filling, so I expect to soon knock off the extra couple of pounds I gained recently. If the weather would improve a bit I would spend more time on the allotment which is waterlogged at present. I was driven from it the other day by driving horizontal sleet but was pleased to see that the Japanese onions are progressing well. The arrival of Woody and the garlic is keenly awaited but I don't think he's tough enough to face the wintry weather. A weekend on call will interrupt serious digging though I'm hoping for a game of squash.
As expected, Sarah Paretsky's private detective eats rarely and consumes too much whisky in the latest one I've just finished (Hard Time). If only she would just get on with a good story of crime/detection without all the feminist stuff, she'd be reasonable even withuot food. I must plan some decent stuff for the NZ trip. It's a long flight without a decent read. No food so far either in Murakami's "A Wild Sheep Chase" though there was quite a lot in "Norwegian Wood", but I think he'd be good for a long journey.
I am not certain why anniethegrannie has produced a list of female writers. The theme of the list was meant to be war stories. It just happened that owing to their different roles in wartime the stories were related by the active participants who were inevitably men. Anyway, thank you for the list; I doubt if I shall be reading any of them in the foreseeable future.
Germaine Greer has managed to annoy me again by making daft comparisons between Lauren Bacall and Catherine Deneuve. She claims that the former was not "a regular beauty" but was a "spunky working girl" who managed to be tough funny and sexy all at once. The latter was a "timeless beauty" whose "impassivety" is objectionable to Ms. Greer. Of course Greer sees all this from a woman's perspective but I do not think that she understands sex appeal. There is nothing impassive about Deneuve's mouth! (I see that the unsynthesised manifold had another appearance in the Guardian today.)
The two women are totally different but both have sex appeal in abundance. Why does the Guardian keep giving so much space to Ms. Greer, who, incidentally, has no sex appeal whatsoever. I would give you a list of ten without difficulty, and maybe I will one day, but two such creatures as Bacall and Deneuve should be enough for one morning. Instead, I offer ten actors , not necessarily the geatest, who have given great entertainment (and maybe have sex appeal to women):-
151. Humphrey Bogart
152. James Stewart
153. Cary Grant
154. Spencer Tracy
155. Burt Lancaster
156. Walter Matthau
157. Gary Cooper
158. Lee Marvin
159. Steve McQueen
160. Slim Pickens
I had quite a lot of contenders for a place on this list and there may be a second list at some time in the future, but in case anyone is going to try and influence selection I should remind you that there were good reasons why some were excluded and the choice is a personal one of actors who have provided great pleasure to me. John Wayne was excluded because he always played the same part- tough,
fearless and a bit of a bully. Fred Astaire always played the same part too but I look on him as a dancer,not an actor.
This week I have been mostly eating bacon because there were serious amounts in the fridge getting rather time expired. There also seem to be large amounts of sprouts left over from the Christmas period. A slight loss of taste due to a cold has made them much more palatable and they are quite filling, so I expect to soon knock off the extra couple of pounds I gained recently. If the weather would improve a bit I would spend more time on the allotment which is waterlogged at present. I was driven from it the other day by driving horizontal sleet but was pleased to see that the Japanese onions are progressing well. The arrival of Woody and the garlic is keenly awaited but I don't think he's tough enough to face the wintry weather. A weekend on call will interrupt serious digging though I'm hoping for a game of squash.
As expected, Sarah Paretsky's private detective eats rarely and consumes too much whisky in the latest one I've just finished (Hard Time). If only she would just get on with a good story of crime/detection without all the feminist stuff, she'd be reasonable even withuot food. I must plan some decent stuff for the NZ trip. It's a long flight without a decent read. No food so far either in Murakami's "A Wild Sheep Chase" though there was quite a lot in "Norwegian Wood", but I think he'd be good for a long journey.
# posted by Bob @ 6:04 am 
