The Great Crush Gallery: Ladies First

And so, the Rogues Gallery of first crushes of YOU, the reading public. Please excuse use of very small pictures here, I am merely thinking of my poor sister in Mozambique whose computer will crash if I make them any bigger. You can probably click on them to enlarge, should you want a closer look. I think some of you might well want a closer look at certain of these ladies, but let's not anticipate.

First up, nominated by both Scott and Johnny Nexus: East German gymnast Maxi Gnauck.



She is the one who is having her tits stared at, not the one who is staring at the tits.

Next, the first of our Doctor Who nominations, Wendy Padbury aka Zoe, championed by Brian Clegg:



Doctor Who is a popular source, also providing MediumRob's offering of Nicola Bryant, who played Peri:



Nope. Can't see what would appeal to a young boy there.

MediumRob also suggests Soolin of Blakes 7, another show which has done sterling work providing subjects for crushes for the impressionable children of the UK:



Believe me, it was not possible to get a picture of Soolin not looking gormless. Not possible.

Last up from MediumRob is Hadyn Gwynne. I couldn't find any pictures from Drop the Dead Donkey, honest, so I went with -



What a feeling.

Providing stiff competition to the ladies above is Oliver's nomination, Megan Follows from Anne of Green Gables:



Hmm.

And finally, and this picture has been specially chosen because it's the exact poster which was the last thing little Ben Johncock saw before he fell asleep at night, and the first thing he saw when he woke up in the morning, Rebekah Elmaloglou, aka Sophie from Home and Away:



So, to the polls!

poll by twiigs.com

poll by twiigs.com

Announcement

Yesterday, halfway through the lunchtime edition of Home and Away, I officially quit my Australian Soap habit. I have been watching Neighbours and Home and Away ever since they first reached British screens over 20 years ago, and every lunchtime since I became a full time writer, and it was only at 2.30 yesterday afternoon that I noticed that they are a tedious, repetitive, mind-rotting waste of my time. I switched off at the exact moment that Tony's nephew Xavier showed up at a beach party in Summer Bay with a handful of unspecified drugs in his pocket and I realised that I could not care less what happened next. Xavier is not entirely to blame, I am also not at all interested in the fact that Dan doesn't really want to move in with Libby, whether Donna and Ringo's first sexual encounter will be as special as Ringo hopes, whether Jack will find out that Roman is still in love with Martha, or whether Melody will make it to the Senior Formal and what havoc she will wreak if she does. This may be a sign of age and maturity, or just a sign that there is nobody I fancy on Neighbours or Home and Away any more.

From now on I will spend my lunch hour reading and / or listening to the radio. But in farewell I post this picture of Kip Gamblin, my favourite ever Home and Away crush, whom very long term blog readers might remember from the early Struggling Author days...


Adieu. I know you are on Casualty these days, but there are limits.

Home And A Rape

Long-term readers of this blog will know that I am bit obsessed with Home and Away. I don't blog about it much because I assume that the rest of you have jobs and lives or are Canadian or both, and so aren't familiar with it. I however watch it every day without fail, and let me tell you something. It is really starting to piss me off.

Now, to pick up on the sexual politics of a daytime teen-oriented soap may seem a little hysterical to some, but bear with me, OK? By my count, Home and Away is now on its THIRD misunderstood rapist with a heart of gold. Very, very long-term readers of this blog and its predecessor may remember Kane, the original misunderstood rapist. To summarise, Kane raped Dani, and then married her sister Kirtsy. Dani's objections to this were largely felt to be really quite unnecessarily grudge-holding by the rest of the Summer Bay residents, and eventually she got over it. After all, it was a date rape, so that hardly even counts.

Next up was Henk, or maybe Hank, I am a bit confused by Aussie accents sometimes. Henk / Hank raped Rachel, but quite a long time ago now, so really it's OK when he gets together with Cassie (whose previous boyfriend used to beat her up.) I mean, you can understand why Rachel doesn't approve, but it's love, right? OK, to be fair, Henk / Hank gets AIDS and gives it to Cassie and then she dumps him and takes off travelling with their unborn child, BUT on the whole you are supposed to feel quite sorry for Hank / Henk, whose rape / underage girl habit is portayed as a character flaw on a par with, say, listening to loud music late at night.

And now we have Axel, who tried to rape Melody and failed, and has been shown to feel a bit guilty about it (he confessed to the police), and thus rehabilitated is perfectly ready to start dating new arrival Ruby, who insightfully pointed out that "if I had done something like that, I would feel worse about myself than anybody could feel about me." Anybody, aside from loyal Home and Away viewer Marie Phillips, who is getting sick and tired of date rape being portrayed as som kind of rite of passage for mixed up young kids, like drinking til you puke or spraying graffiti. I hate to come over all Mary Whitehouse about this, but seriously: what kind of message is this sending out to impressionable young viewers?

Next time, if you can stand it: the Whore's Trail of Home and Away's sexually predatory older women, starring Angie, Amanda, and Jazz.

UPDATE: How could I possibly have forgotten Jonah, who raped Martha's best friend, but while (of course) brainwashed, so (of course) it doesn't count, and therefore we shouldn't be at all surprised when he comes back to the Bay (of course) a reformed man, changes his name to Michael and starts (of course) dating Martha.

DOUBLE UPDATE: Turns out I was wrong about Axel. He died. Ah well.

Home and Away Chefs

I know nobody else watches it because you are all at work, but I can't keep this to myself any longer. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEMONIC CHEFS THAT TOP AND TAIL HOME AND AWAY ON UK TV AT THE MOMENT????? I refuse to name the product they are advertising in case it is any encouragement to the company that produces the adverts, or to Channel Five for screening them. They are worse than evil. If I even catch one second of their ads I want to smash my television. And Alan Dale is surely not so desperate for cash that he had to take the voiceover gig. He is in EVERYTHING.

PLEASE, MAKE THE MADNESS STOP.

On the other hand, I did enjoy the whole Martha / Jack / Sam storyline, so Home and Away is not entirely in my bad books at the moment.

Home and Away

Twenty years of Home and Away! God, I feel old. (Though not as old as this pair. It's a successful programme, they could have stretched to airbrushing those bags and wrinkles. Cassie is meant to be eighteen years old! Too much sun, methinks.) I have been watching from the very start, when Alf had hair and Sally - who has been married about three times, and whose actress has an online sex tape - was barely more than a foetus. I like to stop work every day at 6pm and watch a celebratory half hour of Home and Away (which will be followed as of next week by an even more celebratory half hour of Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two, which is appropriate, as the Aussie version of Strictly seems to be won by someone from H&A pretty much every year). Five are also kind enough to show the previous day's episode at noon and the following day's episode on Freeview at 6.30, so if you are really desperate you can watch three episodes in one day, and if that isn't enough, you can read episode synopses on their website that stretch back and forth pretty much until both ends of time.

I also love Neighbours, which I have also watched from the start, and which is my lunchtime break: I'm pretty much an Aussie soap fanatic, and I try to find shame in this status, but so far it eludes me. This is all by way of warning you that there will be many more Neighbours and Home and Away posts to come.

For now, I will just draw your attention to the fact that H&A has just been castigated by the Australian broadcasting watchdog. I wonder what they could possibly have done wrong? Well, could it maybe be the storyline where Martha, having gone off the rails and developed a drinking problem after having an affair with a married man which culminated in an unwanted pregnancy and an abortion, gets involved with the dodgy owner of a dodgy nightclub and ends up as a lapdancer? She won't hear a word against her dubious lover until it's proved that not only has he fathered an illigitimate daughter by one of his dancers and driven another of them to heroin addiction, he is also using the club to sell cocaine. At this point I should probably alert the less informed that Home and Away is, strictly speaking, a children's programme. Apparently the other recent storyline that got them into trouble was one in which "two teenage characters decide to have sex", but I can't comment on that one, as I'm not certain if it refers to Ric and Cassie, Ric and Matilda, Cassie and Jules, Cassie and Mac, Belle and Drew, Belle and Lucas, or Lucas and Matilda, and I would hate to get my details wrong.

I'd write more about this but the lunchtime repeat is poised to start: Brad is going to propose to Sally, little knowing that anyone who does that generally leaves the series shortly after, and there is a storm brewing at sea, which means that anyone currently on a boat will be washed up on shore somewhere where they don't have people, and weeks will pass while Alf Stewart looks for them wearing a fluorescent jacket, and if they are pregnant they will give birth. And that's just twenty-five minutes worth.