FRIDAY! FRIDAY! GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY!
Right?
How are you all doing? Ready for the weekend? Of course you’re not. Because you haven’t had a dose of handsome men to lead you gently into the green pastures of Saturday and Sunday. No worries, TFP is here to provide that service. So take a deep, cleansing breath, turn your monitor discreetly away from your nosy colleague and slip your feet out of the confines of office-appropriate shoes. It’s time for The Friday Pretty – the first of 2012!
Is it too late to wish people a happy new year? Tough.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, READERS! (here, have some Matt Bomer looking into the future, dreamily.)
Listen, there was a bit of a kerfuffle in the media at the beginning of the year, and that meant I was less able to perform my blogging duties. But that’s over now, so let’s not dwell, yeah? How are you? How’s things? I’m in the middle of completing my tax return (this largely involves dropping to my knees and letting out a keening cry of frustration, so I limit the joy to no more than a couple of hours a day) and occasionally looking on RightMove and yearning for flats where the bathroom has a window. But woo, 2012!
Thanks for coming back to read YGD, and to all new subscribers and readers, hello! Like that guy you went out with for six ill-judged months in Sixth Form told you, our contact may be sporadic, but baby, it’s real love. So please stick around.
PS: there’ll be a Friday Pretty tomorrow. BOOM.
Everything happened this year. Revolutions, riots, dictator deaths, economic crises, royal weddings, the release of Captain America, featuring Chris Evans’ giant pecs, Kelly Rowland and a selection of wigs appeared on a painfully mediocre X-Factor, , a fictional Prime Minister boffed a pig, and I cut off all my hair… I could go on, but I think you get the picture. 2011 was The Year of Stuff Happening All The Damn Time™.
Hello, everyone! Hope you’re all settling in for the next week-and-a-bit of enforced family time. Bought the tofurky? Or is it turducken this year? Got the bougie goose fat? How about the balsamic vinegar glaze for the roast veg? Most importantly, have you invented the story that will allow you to extricate yourself at a moment’s notice when family time gets a bit too much for your nerves? Lovely. Let’s cut to the chase.
All in all, 2011 belonged to one chap, didn’t it? I shan’t beat about the bush: it belonged to Ryan Gosling. He was on our big screens (Drive, Ides Of March, Crazy Stupid Love), on our Tumblr dashboards (Feminist Ryan Gosling, FuckYeah!RyanGosling, Librarian Ryan Gosling among others…), on our small screens (being interviewed on Ellen DeGeneres, in a onesie, or breaking up a fight on the street in New York, or reading out a selection of the Hey Girl posts…) and in our dreams (c’mon, don’t be coy). And so this end-of-year The Friday Pretty is dedicated to the man who inspired TFP to covet a satin bomber jacket. With a scorpion on the back. That’s right – it’s an All Ryan Everything edition of TFP. Is this life? (Yes it is. Ovary up, women!)
For the last few months, I have been thinking and vaguely discussing with my sister the idea of ‘something more than an oral history of Nigerians in Britain.” We all know Olaudah Equiano (hold tight, Nigerians in pre-1800 UK – braaap!) but how much do we know about the lives of British Nigerians over the last 40 years or so? My parents came here as students in the early 1970s and ended up staying, on and off, in the south-east of England and London. Through that time, they have had four children (hi, siblings!), held many jobs, entire careers even, and experienced several governments and changes in policy. Their lives are as much Nigerian as they are British – they were born in Nigeria and their children were born here in the UK – what the British Empire started has not ended.
I think every black British person on my Twitter timeline had seen the video of the woman who launched into a racist tirade on a tram somewhere in London before noon on Monday morning (watch it here if you fancy topping up your daily dose of rage, avoid if not – it’s pretty vile). A whole bunch of black people follow me and I follow a whole bunch of them too, and it was an echo chamber of disgust, fear and anger. I personally guessed at some kind of chemical imbalance – was she high on something? Almost everyone mentioned the fact that the woman had a small child in her lap for the entire duration of the video clip, and almost all ended their tweets with regret that her ideas were being passed on unfiltered to this child. We are products of our environment, after all.
Hey, y’all.
Last week, at a literary night called ‘Letters You Never Sent’, I read out a letter to a roomful of strangers (and a few friends). It was the first time I’ve ever read any of my fiction in public, to a paying audience (eek!) and I enjoyed it very much – thank God for tights which absorb nervous wee, eh?. This month’s theme was ‘Corporations’, and below is the letter I wrote and read (the above-mentioned tights make an appearance). Hope you like!
Hi kids! How’s life? Good? AWESOME! Why in such a good mood? It’s only mah flippin’ birthday this weekend! As is traditional, TFP will be celebrating with complex carbs, perving on famous handsome men, friends, a birthday outing and then more carbs. It’s the natural order. With that in mind, let’s just jump straight into this most joyous of anniversaries and commence the perving portion of the weekend – it’s The Friday Pretty!
The winner of People magazine’s annual ode to male attractiveness, ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ was announced this week. And the 2011 winner is… Bradley Cooper! *record scratch* WAIT, WHAT? Look, TFP has a lot of time for Bradley Cooper, with his rock hard abs and strangely owlish face – a lot of time. But lest we forget, 2011 is also the year Ryan Gosling emerged as a force big enough to derail the internet from its main purpose of generating useless memes and endless photos of cats. Derailing the cat ladies of the world? THAT’S A WHOLE HEAP OF SEXY. Still, no shade – well done, Bradley. Here’s a picture of you:
I’m currently in a job which gives me Fridays off. I’m so grateful for it – as well as having a designated day of non-work writing, it allows me to have a lie-in on a weekday (woo!), and I get to do the necessary-but-boring stuff like paying bills and returning library books.
Hey kids! How’s your Friday going? It’s been a hell of a week, huh? Monday was Halloween, and I heard that the trick or treat pickings were slim this year – this recession makes fools of us all! Monday also brought the tragic news of Kim Kardashian’s divorce – another blow for the sanctitiy of marriage… but at least this guarantees at least one more season of her reality show, so.. always look for the silver lining, folks! And tomorrow is Bonfire Night – when us Brits celebrate the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. And that is the theme for this week’s TFP – the chaps who make us light up like the sky on November 5. Brace yourselves, hide yo’ pets and keep a bucket of water handy to put out those sparklers – it’s The Friday Pretty!
It’s Friday, chaps and chappesses!
This week was epic for all the wrong reasons – work reached tortuous lows, which resulted in TFP falling face first into soothing cheesecake aka ‘eating my feelings’. Before we get bogged down in the vice that is emotional eating, let’s all just agree it’s sometimes necessary before life can go on. We cool? Cool. So how’s tricks with you all? Good? Good. How about we upgrade that shiz to ‘better-with-a-certainty-of-hot-dudes”? You like that? Then let’s go – join me on the voyage of hotness that is The Friday Pretty!
We start the week with a little comfort-perving. Paul Rudd: forever gorgeous (is he part-black? This man just won’t crack!), reassuringly hot but accessible, uber-funny. What’s not to love on a cold October day? Here he is, all adorbs:
Hey guys!
For the month of October, my friend @RubyA_79 and I are running a small side project called Alternative Black History Month Facts. It’s a Tumblr blog, and we’d appreciate it if you followed us on there.
Black History Month trainers, y'all.
Some of you who follow on Twitter will already be aware of the blog, as well as the fact that it was inspired by the American blog Little Known Black History Facts, written and run by Brokey McPoverty (she’s hilarious).
Anyway, we hope it raises a gentle giggle for you all. So tell your friends. And every last one of your wotless roadman cousins too. Ta.
Hola, beautiful people! It’s Friday, it’s pretty and a little pervy – IT’S THE FRIDAY PRETTY!
Hope you’re all doing swell. It’s been one of those weeks around these parts – mass production of snot, nosebleeds, aches, pains, a stupidly busy week at work and still no sign of John Cho to whisk TFP away for a leisurely mini-break in Barcelona. Dude, what’s the hold-up? In any case, TFP wasn’t going to let a little thing like phlegm get in the way of perving, so here, for your delectation, is a gallery of hot dudes to gawp at. Cheques and baked goods of gratitude to the usual address, please. Ta.
A simple invitation to dinner is always a turning point in my friendships. It is when I reveal the complex knot of food neuroses I have collected over the years, which means it is the point where I either alienate a friend or find a kindred spirit. And so, I’ve written a short essay about food – my food – and the things which are Good For Consumption, and the things which are Not Good. Feel free to print it out and keep as as crib sheet.
Hi everyone!
Yes, the blog is still largely neglected, and for that I apologise profusely. But!
*Bright smile*
Here’s an occasional new feature to make me seem less crap! From time to time, I will be writing short (or long) essays and putting them up on the blog. They’re not necessarily going to be about any one thing in particular, and they’re more likely, at this stage, to err on the silly side, but I hope you like them. It’s a way for me to exercise my writing muscle (heh) without posting my mangled fiction.
The first of these goes up tomorrow morning, and is about food.
I hope you enjoy.
PS: The answer to your slightly confused question, “But how will these be any different to everything else you write on here?” is um, because these will be tagged ‘Essays’. Ahem.
