A little bit hot

Today's post answers the question posed on Wednesday: is Colin Farrell hot? I'm going to give you the answer straight up: he's quite hot, readers, quite hot. 

For many years, I paid him no mind, because he seemed kind of gross like one of those dime store hunks they try to palm off on us as the real deal. You know the type. 

When I saw The New World I realised I was prepared to tolerate him. Years later I saw The Lobster and I realised he was quite good in things. I guess a seed got planted, because from then on, I've been slightly interested in him. 

Plus, he's Irish, and that can be quite hot. 

So when I started to see ads for The Beguiled I thought  it was time to answer the question once and for all. But let me be clear, the research proposition was not to establish if he's a hunk. I know he's not. But as I was watching it, I could see that he's more interesting than most handsome people on the screen. You know, he's quite hot. 

History sure is cool

K was right yesterday. History is amazing. All those many, many thousands of years people have been getting by. They didn't have Netflix or showers but it was ok because they didn't even know about Netflix or showers. But some things would have sucked. Like the possibility you could get chucked in a peat bog. To think about human history is pretty amazing. But history goes back further than that. How about dinosaurs. When I stop to think about the fact that they actually existed and aren't just a creation to fill sci-fi movies and cover children's pyjamas my tiny mind is always blown. And what about before that?! First there were just tiny organisms and they evolved into all the things that have ever been on the earth. What!?!?

I don't just get this feeling of awe and delight when I think about the entire history of the world though. I also have it when I see a giraffe and then think about them in the wild. What a crazy creature.

History is cool

I've been listening to this really great podcast. A History of the World in 100 objects. Each episode is about an object from the British Museum, starting with very early human tools found in Africa. The episodes talk about the objects, the place and time they came from and what they tell us about the past. The best ones also talk about the circumstances in which the object was found. Like, a bunch of welsh miners were just doing a spot of mining when boom, they uncovered a Bronze Age grave which has taught us heaps about the social and economic lives of people from thousands of years ago. 

It reminds me of being at school and learning about the Grauballe Man. You know, this guy:

 

He is an Iron Age era fellow who was preserved for thousands of years in a peat bog in Denmark. 

My kid mind was totally blown by the Grauballe Man. I mean, he was a dead body from the deep distant past, a time when people were killed and chucked in peat bogs as a human sacrifice. These things had never occurred to me. I thought history consisted of  those Old Testament guys, a bit of time,  then Jesus, a bit more time, then Captain Cook and Soverign Hill and then colour television. The notion that there were just regular folks living their regular lives in their old timesy societies well before Jesus? I loved it. I still love it. 

One of my favourite episodes of the podcast is the one where they talk about something called the flood tablet. It's a tablet from Mesopotamia that contains an account of a great flood, where it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. It's a great episode and contains some unexpected nudity. And all the things that are great about history. 

Remember the time (AM)

Did you guys watch Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall last night? Catchy title, right? (Seriously Spike Lee, you can do better.) I know we've all said this before and we'll say it again, but shiiiiit, MJ was so cool.

Like, I know we all know he could dance. But shit, you guys that guy could really dance! And watching people dance well is one of my favourite things in the world! And I know we all know he wrote these awesome songs, but seriously, you guys, 70s and 80s MJ is so good. Why he gotta go all crazy and shit. Life is can be so cruel. So let's remember the happier times.

In other news, I'm writing this at Prahran Library and there is a wifi network somewhere around me called Blur. Cool.

There is absolutely nothing funny about this post (PM)

Reflections? Sure I got some.

Man, I remember the night of the 2007 elections. I had dinner with some peeps at spicy fish, as was our wont back then. In those pre-iPhone days we had to get updates from people via phone calls! By the time that dinner was over Kevin 07 was victorious and we were so goddamn happy we were actually rejoicing in the streets.

And it was good for a while, wasn't it guys?! We had it pretty good. And then Labor *#%^ed it. They *#%^ed it right in the ^*€#.

And the it just £^*¥ *%#$ @$&* &$%^. &?%$ *$%%^#^&& destabilising ¥+*^ %£#* @&$* ^*¥ *%#$ @$&* &$%^. So &@$* @$&* %*#* @$&*. Just &*% *&%# #&%^ Kevin Rudd &@)# @$#* ¥+*^ %£#* @&$* ^*¥ *%#$ @$&* &$%^. So &@$* *&%^ ?$%* #$@& *&^%.

Yeah, I got reflections.

Hunk of the Month Club - Hunks of History edition: Paul Newman

When Paul Newman died in 2008 (I know, can you believe it was that long ago?!), the world mourned the loss of a truly great guy. Here was a man who had fought in a war, acted in a bunch of movies, stayed married for a super long time in Hollywood and devoted part of his life to making pasta more delicious, then giving away the money he earnt through doing so. His death meant that there was one less truly wonderful person in the world, and so we all mourned. 

Of course, Miss Soft Crab also mourned his death as the loss of a hunkiness that comes around once, maybe twice in a lifetime.

Look at this face, readers. 

Mate, what do you want to say about that face?

J: It's true, that kind of face I mean guy comes along so rarely it's worth celebrating retrospectively. Paul Newman was so handsome that for years, YEARS, I didn't even realise Robert Redfdord was a hunk. I was so blinded by Newman when I saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid I couldn't even tell there were two hunks in that film. Now that! That is one hell of a hunk. 

Hunks, all of them. 

K: Well Mate, I guess the one good thing that came from me making you watch The Way We Were so many times was an increase in your Robert Redford-as-hunk awareness.

I kind of had the reverse experience. Being raised by a mother with a permanent boner for Robert Redford, I had no idea that there were other hunks in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid until I saw it for the first time and from that day forward have basically been all Robert who?

Sure, Robert is pretty. But Paul, readers, Paul. He is something else altogether.

And Butch is such a lovely character! I don't know what that lady was thinking, going out with Sundance.

This is the face of a madwoman

J: Well, clearly that lady in Butch and Sundance is crazy. But literature and life are full of this kind of crazy (see: Bella Swan choosing Sparkleface over Jacob and Kristen Stewart choosing that old director over R.Patz).

I can see it. 

You know a special thing about P.New, from a purely superficial point of view, is that he really just had such a nice face. Even as he got old, actually old, you could still see the handsome man in there. Now that is something you don't see everyday.

K: I totally agree. His face was just so fine. That goddamned smile, Mate (and readers).

It's like Woody Allen says in the end of Manhattan, when he is listing all the things that make life worth living.

If Miss Soft Crab was writing that list, it would start and finish with Paul Newman's face.

Is that a bottle opener around his neck? Hot. 

*cough*

I mean

J: Yeah, that face sure is worth living for. But, like you said earlier, Mate, The Newm was more than just a pretty face. I mean, the guy invented a sauce company just so he could donate the profits to charity. He made a whole company for charity. What a guy!

K: The Newmanator was a really top guy.

And, because he was married to the same woman for his whole adult life, his hunkiness includes a whole other dimension that no other MSC HotMC has before.

He was a hunk that didn't spread it around, and readers, I'm sorry but that is HotMC hot.

J: Yeah, fidelity really is the mark of a great hunk. Sure, P.New left his first wife for J.Woo, but whatevs, he was so young when they met.

Really it is almost impossible to believe that a hunk like that existed. Pretty; philanthropic, long-term monogamist; did I mention pretty?; life-long hunk. I'm sure the guy was not perfect, but whatevs, even being able to have a life long appearance of a-grade hunk is worth kudos.

K: Yeah, no hunk is perfect, but P.New? He was pretty darn close.

So kudos Paul Newman, MSC's very first HotMC: Hunks of History Edition hunk and hero, may you inspire other hot people to go further and become the dead set hunk you were. 

Hump day (AM)

Sometimes, when I tell people that I co-author a five day a week blog, they say to me "Wow, do you guys ever run out of things to say?" to which I always reply  "of course we do, we constantly run out of things to say, it's actually kind of a miracle we ever have anything to say."

People never want to hear that though. 

They prefer to  think that blog writing is effortlesss and fun, and where there is always something to blog about because life is so full of amazing people doing inspiring things, and laneways. I know I don't need to tell you, loyal readers of MIss Soft Crab, that ours is not the kind of blog that rides on the back of amazing people doing inspiring things and laneways. No. Ours is the kind of blog where we cough up whatever comes to mind that day, and somedays (i.e. the middle of the week), 'whatever comes to mind' aint much. But shit you guys, we make the rules, and one of our (unofficial) rules is that you will never read words like 'bespoke' and 'colourways' on Miss Soft Crab unless we have written a post about words that make us want to puke. 

But today, readers, no one is going to puke. No one is going to puke because the other day, I decided to clean out my inbox, leading me to find a bunch of hilarious emails J and I exchanged in the days before Miss Soft Crab was born, the days before Baby was born and the days before J and I had the number 3 at the front of our ages. Come with me now, on a journey through space and time and discover an email J sent me shortly after she dropped down to working 4 days a week. Returning back to work after a day off,  J had the following to say in an email with the subject of simply 'Thursday":

Mate, I don’t wanna rub it in or anything but not working hump day really takes the hump out of that day. It's so good never having to wait too long for a day off. Yesterday I met David’s puppy, Ivy. She is very beautiful and incredibly sweet and I think I love her. Also it was nice to eat lunch in the sun with David (bagel with cream cheese, avo and lemon mmmmmmm). 
Then LB and I went to see David O’Doherty. It was very funny. Then we ate dumpys. Mmmmmmmm. Then when we got home there was some Russell Brand Show on teev so I just had a wonderful laugh-filled night. Laughter rules.

Anyway, how are you?

So back to me. I am heading towards the decision of dinner at the folks for my b’day. People are generally enthusiastic about it when I tell them and my Mum loved the idea. I thought she may, but she was all “Yeah, that’s a great excuse to make Dad do something fun with me!” And “Yeah, I’ll clean up! I’ll put clean sheets on our bed so you can stay! Maybe you should open up my office into the next room and dine in there!”

I hope if I have kids that I don’t start calling LB Dad all the time.

Please note I am not in the office on Wednesdays

Note: That last bit came from J's automatic signature at the time. It was the first line, before her name even. I thought i'd leave it in to show her state of mind.