Rupert Grint goes Irish (10/5/09)

Things YOU need to know:

• Rupert Grint rocks Cherrybomb
  This drug-, sex-, and crime-fest is set in Belfast. Read: Unintelligible Northern Irish accents. Hawt. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival months ago, but it still hasn't hit theaters. (Hat tip to my roomie!)

Rupert Grint gets down and dirty for Cherrybomb. Also, I need that necklace.

I lurve Rupert Grint's non-HP work (though I still haven't seen Thunderpants), but per the trailer, Cherrybomb seems to be Skins: The Movie. Oh, wicked youth.

• Queens on Thrones
  Go look at the world's best pic of Queen Elizabeth II and bonny Prince Charlie. You won't regret it. (Yet another hat tip to my roomie! I may have infected her with my Anglophilia. Mayhap I should be quarantined.)

• The Part about Doctor Who
  Did I remember to tell you guys that the divine Richard Curtis has signed on to pen an episode of the upcoming season of Doctor Who? Do you understand the import of that statement?
  
  Permit me to explain. Richard Curtis is the genius behind The Vicar of Dibley! For the uninitiated, VOD is a totally ridiculous Britcom set in a country village that's been assigned a lady vicar: one Dawn French, comedienne extraordinaire. Hilarious character-based high jinks ensue. This is My Favorite Show of All Time. Check it:

If that's what Curtis does with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, I cannot WAIT to see what he'll do with the good Doctor. (Hat tip to Filmi Girl! It's like I don't even try to find my own news these days.)

Maybe Richard Curtis can help me heart Matt Smith's adolescent Doctor Who.

• I totally made out with Richard Armitage...
  ...in this inappropriate dream I had one time. (That's a secret. Don't tell anyone. I only told you guys so I could use that information as an awkward lead-in to his totally dorky North and South interview.)
  
  In a nutshell: Armitage stars as the I-love-him-more-than-Darcy hero of North and South, John Thornton. N&S is a totally rad BBC mini-series of Elizabeth Gaskell's totally rad book of the same name. And in his cast interview, Armitage talks, at length, about all of the research he did for the part. He's very, um, detailed. (Read: Giant nerd.) He's also wearing kind of a hilarious necklace. And this interview is why I lurve him.

Hahahahaha! I love nerds. Here's part 2:



My guess: Dude didn't have a girlfriend until he was at least twenty. Srsly adorbs.

• I have FIVE papers due this week.
  And I'm only taking FOUR classes. So I spent Sunday, which was ridiculously gorgeous, cooped up in my apartment, writing papers. To make myself feel better, I pretended to be working all day in the Gryffindor Common Room with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. (I listened to the Order of the Phoenix soundtrack to lend credibility to my ruse.) Certain individuals have told me "that's the nerdiest thing [they've] ever heard."

Even homework is more fun in the Gryffindor Common Room!

Whatevs. They're just jealous that they didn't get to spend the day at Hogwarts.

Dial-a-Ghost, plus ejaculating cake! (7/22/09)

First up: adorable kidz' book. (I am a big old sucker for children's lit. I think maybe there's less navel-gazing than in grown-up land? Whatever it is...kidz' books rock!) Dial-a-Ghost, by Eva Ibbotson, is pinch-its-cheeks cute. To wit: Oliver Smith's evil cousins try to scare him to death—but the lovely, oh-so-British Wilkinsons turn up and befriend him instead. Confusion and awesomeness ensue. (Adopta the ghost-animal lover helps.)

Basically, any book that starts off like this:

The Wilkinson family became ghosts quite suddenly during the Second World War when a bomb fell on their house.

possesses just the right amount of whimsy, I think. Also, my biggest, most Anglophiliest obsession is British English. The English on the Other Side of the Pond rocks my socks, and it totally runs rampant up in here. Yes!


Speaking of the Second World War, which was a long time ago...1623 was also a long time ago. And here is a mince pie recipe from 1623! Thanks, Britain Express! They also have more reasonable recipes, like Harry Potter's fave, treacle toffee.

Once upon a time, I checked out a book from the library with old English recipes—but as minor details (such as oven temperatures) were conspicuously absent, I didn't get very far. Nor with the mince pie recipe, I think. It instructs you to "cut the best flesh of the best flesh" from a leg of mutton, for starters. A tad vague for me.

Anywho, while we're chatting about food, how about star British chef Heston Blumenthal's ejaculating cake? Heston did a series of period dinners (the Victorian one featured an enormous glow-in-the-dark absinthe jelly), and ejaculating cake is a Roman delicacy, apparently. I couldn't find a video of Heston's cake in action, but for a more mod, very graphic (read: kind of crass) American version, check out this (very) short video (premature ejaculation short, if you know what I'm sayin').

Heston Blumenthal's ejaculating cake, post-coital.

In de rigueur Harry Potter news, Emma Watson has confirmed to Paste magazine that she will be attending Uni in the US, at Brown. (Actually, she said, "I’ve got a place there to read literature." How Very British.)

Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson being adorable together.

You can also check out the Paste interview with Daniel Radcliffe, as well as their general Harry Potter mania, including props for my boys Harry and the Potters. Nice.

Joe and Paul DeGeorge are wizards who rock.

(Side note: Paste and its founder/editor-in-chief, Josh Jackson, are both awesome. Like many, many other mags, it's struggling hardcore right now, so if you lurve music, you might consider subscribing to it.)

And now I leave you with my new favorite thing: the Guardian news quiz. I always fail, but it keeps me informed, more or less.

For example: Did you know that Prince Charles is now repurposing his bathwater to his garden? Sounds like my whole switching from tp to leaves theory wasn't as far off as one might have thought!