It's Monday, therefore the trains are delayed

Instead of dwelling on the fact that South Eastern trains have ensured I'm not in work for 9am on yet another Monday morning, I shall instead focus on my weekend. It was like stepping back in time, to my teenage years... except, instead of Marilyn Monroe, Timothy Dalton and Depeche Mode, the subjects of my mild obsessions in 2006 are Dita Von Teese, Daniel Craig and Muse. On Saturday afternoon, I suffered thousands of B&H puffing chavs at Olympia in order to (amongst other things) watch the delightful Ms Von Teese perform a short burlesque routine. On Sunday evening, I suffered hundreds of popcorn-munching chavs and their offspring* in order to watch Daniel Craig become my new favourite James Bond. And then, when we got home (thankfully no chavs there!), XFM treated us to a whole bunch of wonderful live tracks from Muse.

It appears that my taste in music and 007s has improved somewhat since those teenage years, as the current favourites have a lot more talent between them, but what does this say about my taste in female icons? As a teenager I would watch Some Like it Hot over and over again, as well as a documentary on Monroe's work on what would be the last film before she died. I may have progressed from idolising a woman with a great deal of emotional issues, to one who seems very stable and sure of herself, but is it right for a feminist to admire someone who is, essentially, a stripper? I think the fact that Topper was disappointed with her performace, calling it "tame", reassures me that she is more of a performance artiste than a sex worker, but I can't help wonder if it says something interesting about my view of women that I enjoyed watching a (practically naked) female rolling around in a giant martini glass. Perhaps, in admiring all this sex appeal and musical talent, I'm simply being ruled by my hormones again. Just like a teenager.

* Because it was a 12A so they didn't need to get a babysitter. They might need to pay for therapy after their 7-year-old watched all that violence and torture though!

The 'beautiful' game

Most awesome gig ever

There is a new number one in my top-five-gigs-I've-ever-been-to list. On Friday night, Muse were awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I did contemplate not going to stay with my parents afterwards and just hanging around outside the arena on Saturday to see if I could get a ticket for that night's performance too. Words cannot describe just how great that gig was but, seeing as this is a blog and words are sort of integral to getting my point across, I shall try to come up with something better than this by the end of today. In the meantime, just rest assured they really were truly awesome.

UPDATE: My review so far consists of only this: "There were lights and video screens a-plenty, and the drummer kinda came out of a pod (a la Spinal Tap), before Muse crashed through one awesome song after another. Finishing with the tremendous Knights of Cydonia and thousands of people singing "you and I must fight for our rights" at the tops of their voices... it sends a shiver down my spine just thinking of it again". Am too busy searching for live clips on YouTube in a desperate attempt to relive the moment, but will try to write more before the end of the week!

Up in smoke

It's not often you get to see your local authority setting fire to some of your council tax dosh. Let's hope that the 30 minutes of rather awesome fireworks that Lewisham and Greenwich Borough Councils provided at Blackheath on Saturday night meant that fewer people were injured in their back gradens by cheap 'n' dodgy explosives. I also noted that I haven't encountered any young ASBOs lobbing fire-crackers at cars this year. Perhaps it only happens in certain parts of Manchester, or perhaps they really are clamping down on idiots getting their hands on the things. Whatever the reason, I hope it continues.

UPDATE:I do hope the above comment about the 'yoof of today' makes me sound old rather than like a Daily Mail reader. I'd rather not be thought of as either but, reading through this post again, I realised that your average 18-year-old isn't usually concerned by this kind of thing.