Lopez Blogs

It has been an insanely busy and tense week for my gorgeous little dazpanteloons and I. First off, Darren's abcess on his spine has returned and is now infected so he is on a waiting list for surgery (because i changed jobs last year, the new private healthcare doesn't cover pre-existing conditions! How ridiculous!). Marvelous. Then a recurring kidney problem I have has flown back with a vengence giving me all sorts of stomach type problems. Excellent! So we decided to just ignore that, make use of our annual Tussaud passes and visit Thorpe Park in Surrey. I must point out that my sing-a-long-a-mix cd that played on the way down was uniformly excellent with contributions from Prefab Sprout, They Might Be Giants, McFly, Bonnie Tyler and, er, Rolf Harris. The park was absolutely rammed to the brim with boys in bri-nylon tracksuits that were positively crackling with static electricity and girls in bright coloured tutus and leg warmers. It wasn't so much clang clang clang went the trolley, more clang clang clang went the sovereigns. Chavtastic. The highlight and the lowlight was the brilliant Stealth (above) which rockets you off at 80 mph in 2 seconds to fling you over the loop. Marvelous you might assume except it suffered a "technical fault" which meant instead of going over the loop, it hovered precariously at the top, then rolled backwards rather jerkily to stop just before where it started. There were screams, vomit and yes, piddle. Only 1 of which came from me :P Ok, on with the X Factor wrap up and highlights of the week....

THE X FACTOR:

God, you think Michael Jackson week would be a real chance for the acts to actually put on a performance. You thought wrong. It was possibly the most sinfully boring show of the X Factor ever. 9 ballads, 1 incredibly gaudy and ill advised rock number (druggie Rachel who must have been high to pick Dirty Diana) and a safe as a seat belt, by the numbers dance routine (JLS). It's the oldest (Daniel - still huge, and still got me wondering what the Brookstein he is doing there) and youngest (Yorkshire Pud boy with goddawful hair and unforgiveable clothes styling) who are way out of their depth and don't deserve to be there in the slightest. Even last week's good acts (Alexandra - given a carbon copy version of I'll Be There Mariah style to sing; and Laura murdering the first half of something so dull I can't even recall what) had totally lost their shine, though to be fair sounded way better than most. Austin Drag-Artist pretended he had come up with the David Cook version of Billie Jean until Louis Walsh outed him. Girlband (please read DanUK's rather entertaining view on the first few minutes of the show!) upped the vomit factor with Heal The World saying they chose the song because it has a beautiful sentiment. Ruth had the wind machine on again, prompting Darren to wonder if she gets particularly sweaty and needs additional cooling down? The highlights were a lovely restrained version of She's Out Of My Life by lovely Scott (hope they haven't stripped the funfactor from him now though) and a stunning version of Man In The Mirror by barefoot Diana (even if it is remarkably similar to the Natalie Gauci version on Australian Idol). God I am positively dreading Ray Quinn, er, I mean Big Band week next week.... bring on Abba week I say!

WEEKLY ROUND-UP:

• Girls Aloud appeared on the X-Factor to sing their infernally catchy (but with crap remixes and an even worse upcoming album sleeve) single The Promise. It was all very nice, though frankly the evil one (Cheryl) seemed to be trying far too hard, and sounded a bit ropey. Sarah looked hammered as usual, Nicola sounded amazing and I keep forgetting Kimberley exists. Still my number one single though. Oh! And Dannii (who i swear is drunk through most of the live shows) has a brilliant look of disdain on her face (she is probably agreeing with Mike PTA's view of Cheryl) on her face at 1m53s...
• The third in the Wicked series by Gregory Maguire (A Lion Among Men) is taking me a surprising amount of effort to get into. Perhaps the sheer brilliance of the first two books had my expectations set a little too high, and this one just hasn't grabbed me as instantly. I shall of course remain with it. I am nothing if not, if not loyal...
• There is a plethora of perky pop around at the moment. Of course Britannia High finally starts next Sunday, and tonight is the final live performance of Hairspray: The School Musical which has been mightily entertaining on Sky One (check out the video for You Can't Stop To Breathe as i call it. I mean have you ever tried singing along?!) And I finally heard the full length Same Difference single and i can reveal that it is as amazing as the clip makes out it will be with a goose pimply key change that will have extra lights and fireworks when performed live to enhance the brilliance of going up a note. Stirling.
• Sugababes and Pink albums leaked this week and both are quite good indeed. I expect that Adem, Aaron and XO will have some wise words about one or both of the sets at sometime in the near future?!
• Finally, there are a number of great new christmas albums (Kristin Chenowith, Sixpence None The Richer, Faith Hill) and songs (Lenka!) out there already, but i shall be saving my reviews of them until the 30 days of Christmas posts start to pop up from 25th November 2008. You have been duly warned...

TOP 21 SONGS OF THE WEEK:

21 ~ Annie, My Love is Better
20 ~ The Feeling, Join With Us
19 ~ Leon Jackson, Don't Call This Love
18 ~ William Young, Changes
17 ~ Rongedal, Hello Euphoria
16 ~ Infernal, Whenever You Need Me
15 ~ Take That, The Greatest Day (NE)
14 ~ Alphabeat, What is Happening?
13 ~ Miley Cyrus, Driveway
12 ~ Lenka, The Show
11 ~ Britannia High, Start of Something (NE/Video)
10 ~ Darin, Breathing Your Love
09 ~ Alesha Dixon, Boy Does Nothing
08 ~ Regina Spektor, You Don't Know Me
07 ~ McFly, Lies
06 ~ Pink, So What
05 ~ Jason Mraz, Make It Mine
04 ~ Sugababes, Girls
03 ~ Marit Larsen, If A Song Could Get Me You
02 ~ The Killers, Human
01 ~ Girls Aloud, The Promise (3 weeks)

I think I am still ill. Even though i have dragged my carcus into work, because I am so dedicated etc, etc. Perhaps my non drowsy allergy tablets have had a bit of a tiff with my tripping over a pig's head in the rain medication because currently I am floating off in lala land, talking to Yuri on google chat when I should be working and praying my head doesn't bang too hard on the desk when i inevitably get my passport stamped to the Land of Nod. Which has quite strict border controls, but is way lenient on the duty free. Woo hoo. ZZZZ, oh right. Anyway on with catching up with the world of Wicked.

• It's been a good ten years since i first bought Gregory Maguire's epic Wicked novel. I still have my first edition copy, and very well thumbed (as they say in the Land of Nod) it has been too. So colour me green with delight that there is now a THIRD volume in the chronicles following on from the enchanting Son Of A Witch. I think it's fairly safe to assume that it focuses on the cowardly Lion and what he has done since Elphaba set him free at Shiz University. Ah dear old Shizzzzzzzzzzzz. Trust me, if you have seen the musical, that last sentence was hilarious. So though not much has been released in the way of plot information, I suspect that Mr Gregory will be flying high with his third Oz related release and I am looking forward to this way more than Brisingr and even Tales of Beedle the Bard.
• Talking of Defying Gravity, Kerry Ellis (who currently plays Elphaba in Wicked The Musical) has followed in the footsteps of the lovely Oliver "Fiyero" Tompsett and released some of her vocal warblings on cd for the public. Her Brian May produced version of Defying Gravity adds an electric intensity to the track that Idina's glossed up dance version on her latest album seemed to lose. You can only buy it at dress circle in the UK, but if you are a fan of the musical or just fancy a jolly good air guitar thrashing version of it, then it is an absolute must have. As Ned Flanders might say, it's spine ting - diddily- ingling!
• Woohoo! Wicked has finally open in, well, oz. It broke records in Melbourne on it's opening night and that's quite an achievement for the country that gave us the guilty pleasure stage version of Dirty Dancing and frankly can't-arrive-in-England fast enough Priscilla - Queen of the Desert musical. I'll let Mike Poptrashaddicts off for not being there as a) he is in London hiding from monsters :P and b) it doesn't star Dannii Minogue or Olivia Neutron Bomb's daughter :) But Adem! You have no excuse!! Oh I so need to fly over and just see this again...

I think it was a tribe called quest that wisely but incorrectly once said "Rapping is fundamental". I've never been a rapper, but i do love writing. My novel is now finished and undergoing some harsh revisions (critical friends can be so brutal!) to improve "narrative flow" and "character development". Which is all good obviously, as much like people in the army, I want it to be all it can be. The problem is, obviously it has to be typed up on the computer and I just love actually writing. With a pen. Til my wrist aches. I love to see all the little notes i've scribbled in the margins referencing plot points and necessary changes. And i know you can do all that in Word, but it just doesn't seem the same. And when I'm famous, a word document won't fetch a charity millions on ebay :P So the actual novel is all typed up and lovely in word, but I somehow treasure my scrapbook of thoughts, paragraphs and character resumes. I particularly like the page where I had writers block so in frustration i scrawled FUUUCCCCK in massive letters, which led to an entirely unexpected train of thought which totally changed the last few chapters of the book. Weird. Writing to order, by the way, based on feedback and suggestions is freaking hard. I rewrote the prologue for about the 25th time, sent it to some friends and then realised it was the worst draft yet. Nothing better than a bit of public humiliation!! Anyway, for more expert writing on writing, you could do far worse than visit Heidi's (Mrs Dan) always brilliant blog...

Anyway, that random rant was inspired by some decluttering this weekend. I'm amazed at how much the look of a room can change just by adding a few things here and there. Our living room had a big clunky cabinet at the end of the corner sofa with a big clunky stereo on. Ditching that completely, adding a fancy white end table and some cushions and rug with a splash of colour has totally changed the look of the room! And in the kitchen - gone is the pine dining table and a black and white dining set takes it's place. Oooo i feel like i live in a show home now. It's all very lovely and aces. The house seemed such a mess after we'd assembled everything, so Darren went into full Bree (Desperate Housewives) mode to make it look spiffy. I've been to paradise but i've never been to Bree...

Anyway, here are some essential things, blogs, upcoming happenings and random occurences you should all definitely, maybe, probably, if you can be bothered check out....

• Darren and I have just finished watching the entire series of hilarious Aussie comedy Summer Heights High. Not only have I found a totally new way to pronounce "homo" but I've been singing "she's a bad girl with a bad habit" all the live long day. The last episode was strangely touching - i nearly wept at the conclusion to Jonah's storyline.
• Now that Kirsty from Location x 3 has gone shrill and annoying, I find myself warming to Nicky Hambleton Jones (NHJ) from 10 Years Younger. Not only does she have the most amazing glasses collection, but she actually pronounces off as "orf" which is very lovely in this chavvy day and age. Plus she regularly berates people for constantly wearing black. Nothing wrong with black, but as NHJ says ~ "every day?!" Right on sister.



• The ever adorable Same Difference have some new pics up and a new blog which mentions more about recording the album. Enough already (though i adore their blogs) - bring on the music! Their video concept sounds so cheesy, i can eat it right up...
• The remnants of potential to be massive boyband Digital (RIP) live on. I've kept in touch with Dean and Ian over the past year as both of them launch their solo careers, and both have some VERY exciting stuff coming up.
  
  
• Woo hoo! Maroon 5 release a special edition of their "sophomore" set It Won't Be Soon Before Long. The bonus tracks are already available (and have been for a while if you are a fan) but the disc comes with a dvd of concert and all their music videos. Adam Lefine. Sigh.
  


• Not a week after writing about the vair vair marvy Stiff Dylans comes news of their non McFly cover new single - and lead off track from the Georgia Nicholson film. It's called Ultraviolet and you can listen to it on the widget thingy above. Enjoy mon pallies.
• Wicked fans like myself can rejoice. Following on from my well thumbed copy of Wicked I bought in 1998, and Son Of A Witch (the sequel) there is now a third book coming out in October (just in time for Halloween!) called A Lion Among Men. It's a trilogy now! Only there will be a fourth book, so to borrow a term from the hideously titled Alien and Die Hard box sets - it's a Wicked Quadrilogy!!! Oh my dayz.

More sometime this week!

Click here to be taken to the British website for Wicked: The Musical - The Untold Story of The Witches Of Oz. I am UBER-Excited about this show finally coming to England! I am so on the phone at 9am this Sunday...

(note: I also got row 3 seats for Dirty Dancing The Musical in London this October... how gay am I??)