Category: Celebrities

Posted in Books, Celebrities, Current Events, family, london, Reviews

Unpopular Opinion: Spare is Worth A Read

Posted on by Miss Blabbaholic

I’ve held off doing this review for as long as I could, in the hopes that when I finally post it, the dust would have settled enough for the general public to look at Spare in a fair and objective manner.

I can only imagine how hard it must be to live your life under such intense public scrutiny. I remember how humiliated I felt once when one of my classmates read out some poems I’d written about my best enemy who also happened to be my secret crush (he was the Arnold to my Helga, please don’t judge me, I was thirteen). In front of the whole class. Which just so happened to include Arnold.

I remember that sinking feeling in my gut when I was called to task in front of my family because my uncle had somehow discovered that I’d lied about a school trip, all so that I could go on holiday with my one great love (and no, I don’t think its a coincidence that a lot of my bad decisions seem to have involved guys).

There isn’t a single one of us who can claim that we didn’t make mistakes, who can say with all honesty that they hadn’t been involved in a youthful indiscretion or two. We’ve all had a forbidden sip of alcohol before we’d reached the legal drinking age, and I can name a number of my friends who’d smoked cigarettes as a giant middle finger against their parents or some other figure of authority.

We’ve had our share of heartaches and heartbreaks. We’ve lost relatives, mourned loved ones, and either directly or indirectly have even come face to face with our own mortality,

The difference between us and Prince Harry is that during those times when we fucked up, it was not a matter of national interest.

It would not have made any difference to the Houses of Parliament if I stopped talking to my sister because she was being a bitch (which is every other day most weeks, and every day at certain times of the month, sorry Arlene).

And yet, when it became general knowledge that Harry and William had come to blows over their wives and royal duties (or was it the size of their royal apartments?), the world seemed to judge Harry for being so open about how he felt about it.

I read a lot of the reviews and write-ups that were published when Spare first came out. A lot of them, even the more sympathetic and impartial ones, seemed to say the same thing: check your privilege, Harry.

It’s like we’re saying he’s not allowed to talk about the things he’s been through because of his wealth and status.

I’m not gonna lie. I was one of those people who rolled my eyes when the Oprah interview came out, with Harry and Meghan insinuating that the senior members of the British Royal Family were racist. I mean, they probably were, but I was like: cry me a river.

At the time the nurses were fighting for fair pay and yet this whole “reveal” was front page news. It was all the morning shows could talk about. The fact that Meghan had difficulty getting a tiara for her wedding, and that she had an argument over some flower girl dress with the then Duchess of Cambridge, was somehow more important than the fact that the NHS was on its last legs.

I was livid.

However, the more I read Spare the more I realised how much of a double standard we have against celebrities and public figures, especially the Royal Family. After all, they don’t really serve a purpose. Some would even argue that they are outdated, a drain on our resources, a waste of taxpayer’s money (although they do wonders for the tourism industry).

So it’s almost like we’re saying we have the right to know every aspect of their lives as recompense for all that we give them. They have to justify their existence by giving us daily insight into their gilded lives, plus points if it happens to involve salacious gossip like infidelity and sibling rivalry,.

And when someone actually has the balls to call us out on our behaviour, we call foul.

Harry has chosen to tell his story the way he sees it.

As a writer, and a lover of stories, I find it difficult to condemn someone for wanting to tell his. Even if a part of me doubts his version of events, even if I find him, at times, incredibly repetitious and whiny, I still think he has the right to tell it, just like everybody else.

After all, what is truth anyway? Who is right, who is wrong? Isn’t history just a version of events as told from the point of view of the victor?

I am as surprised as anybody to find myself saying that my final verdict on this book is that its worth a read. Harry is a far more nuanced person than I ever could have imagined, and in 80% of the book (mostly before Meghan came into the picture) he came across sympathetic, likeable, and relatable.

Either that or the part of me that grew up on a steady diet of Disney movies is just naturally predisposed to forgive Prince Charming anything.

Finally though, I would just like to say that there is a family at the heart of this book, and this is what makes it almost unbearably intrusive. The systematic destruction of what was once a really close relationship, one that fell apart because of an accident of birth, was more painful to read about than Meghan Markle’s supposed struggles against the institution.

Primogeniture: it sucks.

Even as I write this, I am aware of my sister in the room next to me, practising her Japanese on Duolingo in preparation for our trip to Japan in April. It’s not every day that I thank my lucky stars that our relationship has evolved from the days when I wanted to kill her for taping over my Spice World album to what we have today, when sometimes hers is the only company I could bear to keep because everyone else is just so stupid.

In saying that, as the elder of the two, I’m probably William in this scenario. Who knows what secret resentment my sister could be harbouring against me?

I suppose I should just find solace in the fact that Arlene could not care less about going public and writing a memoir. The woman could hardly bring herself to post on social media.

I think I’ll be alright.

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Posted in bloggers, Celebrities, london, Medical, Movies

A Day in The Life of a Wannabe Film Star

Posted on by Miss Blabbaholic

Lights. Camera. Action.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to work with the crew at BBC to do some test shots on a documentary that they’re planning to pitch to Netflix. The idea is to go into operating theatres around the world and follow surgeons around to give viewers some insight of what they see and go through on a daily basis. Needless to say, they needed the perspective of a subject matter expert, which I just happen to be.

The production team emailed us to say that call time was at 8am, far too early to be out of bed on a Saturday morning when you’ve been drinking the night before, but what do you do when the promise of fame awaits? My friend (another subject matter expert) and I arrived at the mock operating theatre to find it mostly empty because the crew were still figuring out how to get all their fancy expensive equipment into the building.

So, just like Robert Downey Jr probably does when he’s on the set for a Marvel Film, we said we were going to get coffee and breakfast and asked them to please give us a ring when they were ready for us. Only, unlike RDJ, we actually had to pay for our coffee and breakfast.

Around 9am we got back to the “set” and met the producers, our director, and the very intimidating director of photography. We also met the. man who designed and made the body we were going to pretend to be operating on for the day, a body that was an eerily accurate and anatomically correct replica I might add.

We got into our costumes. I say that as if this was a special moment but what it actually entailed was putting on scrub suits and caps, the same thing we do day in and day out for work. The other extras (production managers who got roped into playing some of the roles because they didn’t have the budget as yet for real actors) got a huge kick out of it though, and they were really chuffed at the thought of being part of the surgical team for the day. It came as no surprise to me when they admitted to being huge fans of Grey’s Anatomy.

Thank you Shonda Rhimes for single-handedly making our profession more attractive than it probably is.

We didn’t get a script so my friend and I sort of had to make things up as we went along. He had the starring role because I volunteered to be the nurse, so he ended up playing the surgeon. They took lots of shots of him walking in corridors, gazing at the horizon and scrubbing up. I spent a lot of time tweeting and facebooking the entire experience while I waited for my five minutes of screen time.

I imagined that was how Jeremy ‘Hawkeye’ Renner probably felt on the set of the Avengers movies, constantly waiting for them to finish capturing yet another shot of Captain America and his shield. Lol.

I have to say, from watching behind-the-scenes footage and documentaries, I already had the vague impression of the amount of hard work that goes into making any kind of tv episode or feature length film. I mean, the Game of Thrones crew subjected themselves to doing 55 night shifts just to give us the Battle of Winterfell.

Talk about dedication. I’ve done night shifts and at the end of three nights you almost start to lose your sense of self. I really could not imagine doing 55 of them. I don’t care if I get to work with Jon Snow or dragons, night shifts are brutal.

The cameramen, the grips, the lighting director and all the rest of the people who are basically in charge of making the actors look good really are the unsung heroes of the film industry. I’ve seen a small sliver of the precision and attention to detail that goes into making these things and I was very impressed. A bit annoyed that they were nitpicking over each and every shot so much that we overran by about an hour, but impressed nonetheless.

Every shot had to be perfect and stylised. It took about ten takes just to shoot a sequence of Russel washing his hands, and another ten of me dropping a scalpel into a kidney dish. They were using lingo that I didn’t really understand, talking about how the shot needs to be sharp and the camera needs to be slanted and they needed more than a thousand frames – they might as well have been talking Latin for all I knew.

There was also a bit of tension and drama. Artistic people have an artistic temperament. Also, put a bunch of perfectionists in the room and you will inevitably end up with an argument or two, but its the kind of professional bickering that leads to something productive.

I didn’t realise how drained I was until the director finally said “Cut!” on that lost shot and I realised we were done for the day. I wasn’t even really acting, just miming something I did and have done for so long now that I can probably do it in my sleep. Can you imagine having to shoot an emotional scene, (or a love scene! lol) over and over again because the lighting was wrong or the director didn’t get the angle he wanted? I don’t know how actors do it.

We packed up, said our goodbyes to the crew, and made our way to Leicester Square and ended our short-lived stint in the entertainment industry over Chinese food. We looked back on the day and laughed over the experience. It was a glimpse into a world that is beyond our reach, a taste of what life would have been like if we’d been blessed with the self-confidence and talent of a movie star.

We came to the conclusion that there was a reason why we weren’t Hollywood stars, and we had better stick to our day jobs.

So, that’s a wrap on Angela the actress, folks. Thank you BBC for the experience and good luck on the documentary!

Posted in Celebrities, Fantasy

…And Now Our Watch Has Ended

Posted on by Miss Blabbaholic

Its Monday night and I’m sitting in front of the telly contemplating about how dreary the start of the week is going to be now that I no longer have a new episode of Game of Thrones to look forward to.

I wanted to write my own, very brief tribute to this amazing show that some say has lost its way in recent seasons. I myself did not know how to feel about some of the character developments and storyline outcomes; I too thought that the last two seasons were rushed to the point of madness.

But what I can’t deny is the power of a good story. And at the heart of it, A Song of Ice and Fire is an epic tale of dragon queens and bastards, of dwarves and cripples, of faceless men and cruel kings, of betrayals, death and redemption. It’s so big that I don’t think the tv adaptation could ever have done it justice, and the fans of the series are so diverse that no matter what the writers did they were never going to please everyone.

What they did in the end was the one thing that television was created for in the first place: they entertained.

Admit it, as much as you moaned and groaned about the terrible writing you were still riveted to the screen waiting with bated breath for what happens next. Is Daenerys going to descend to madness? Who will kill The Night King? Where in the name of all the seven kingdoms is my favourite character, Ghost?

I’ve watched all 6 episodes of the final season multiple times now, even those that I hated with a passion, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I will end this the way I began it: as a fan. No matter what direction it ultimately took its still better than any other show I have ever seen, and the journeys of each character will stay with me long after the end credits have rolled.

Now that the first phase of the Marvel Universe is over and Game of Thrones has wrapped up and The Big Bang Theory is ending, I feel like there’s about to be a giant void in the world of pop culture, and part of me feels sad that I no longer have an excuse to stay in and avoid going back into dating (and somehow we always come back to this).

But I tell myself every void is a space just waiting to be filled, and I’m hopeful that someday we will have another Game of Thrones, maybe even something better. Maybe someday I’ll get the Rhaegar and Lyanna prequel that I’ve always dreamed about (make this happen, HBO)

But for now, night gathers, but my watch has ended. Thank you, Game of Thrones, its been an absolute blast.

P.S. For those of you who have watched the series finale, wasn’t it great to see that in the end, Jon Snow did, in fact, know at least one thing? Just saying. And also, dracarys. 🙂

Posted in bloggers, Celebrities, Food, Lifestyle, Travel

Etiquette for Meeting Celebrities AKA What NOT to Do When Meeting Gordon Ramsay

Posted on by Miss Blabbaholic

While in Vegas, one does hope to meet celebrities of a certain calibre. Its almost a given. I mean, in the time that my sister and I stayed at the MGM Grand they hosted the Latin Grammy Awards and I am still convinced that I rode the lift with Jennifer Lopez (apparently it was a very convincing impersonator but whatever).

Anyway, I’m sure most of us would like to see celebrities but are we really fully prepared in the event that such a momentous occasion actually occurs?

Never fear, I am here to tell you exactly how to increase the likelihood of meeting one, what to expect, what to do and what not to to do. Are you ready for this?

First of all, its all about location, location, location.

If you want to see celebrities, be where the action’s happening. Do research. Where do they eat? What nightclubs do they frequent? In this world obsessed with social media its not hard to engage in some low-key stalking.

Or if you’re like me and you find the thought of doing the above ludicrous, then maybe just choose a nice restaurant with no hope, and no agenda, just the intention of enjoying a nice meal with your family, and wait for miracles to happen.

In our case, we chose to eat at Gordon Ramsay Steak at Paris Las Vegas.

The casino itself was so opulent, it truly boggles the mind. Where else but in Vegas will you find yourself trying your luck on slot machines located at the base of the Eiffel Tower under a very convincing facade of a Parisian sky?

Anyway, I am now of the opinion that the difference between eating at say, McDonald’s, and a Gordon Ramsay restaurant is in the service. Instead of the sullen person in front of the till asking you if you wanted hash browns to go with your Egg McMuffins, you get personalised service, constant attention and GET THIS, an actual live meat presentation instead of an ordinary humdrum menu.

I have never had wagyu rib cap before and I probably won’t be able to afford to do so anytime soon, but can I just take the time to say this was absolutely delicious? Steak. Heaven.

Second, always have a celebrity-worthy outfit.

I mean, you have to dress up in Vegas anyway. Its almost a requirement. I got to Vegas and I felt underdressed and low maintenance for the first time in my life. They take dressing up to a whole new level.

What you mustn’t do is wear a jumpsuit that requires another person, like your sister for example, to fasten it. See Exhibit A below.

Because believe me, you will find yourself abandoned with the zipper and buttons at the back only half done-up, because said sibling has abandoned you in the toilet after your aunt has made the pronouncement that Gordon freakin’ Ramsay is in the restaurant.

You will then find yourself trying desperately not to have a wardrobe malfunction in front of one of the most famous chefs in the world.

Thirdly, pay attention during the photo op.

Celebrities are busy busy people, and they have loads of fans to meet. In this case, Gordon Ramsay had to go around the entire restaurant, table by table, to give diners indigestion secondary to the sheer awe of meeting him.

What you must NOT do is be too excited and hyper that you develop tunnel vision and not realise who’s actually taking the photo. You must NOT ignore Chef when he tries to tell you to look at the camera so the photo can finally be taken.

But then again, the result of not following this rule is truly hilarious and priceless.

Here’s Chef, telling my beloved Di-ko to please, please, PLEASE, look at the camera madam.

(And also, my jumpsuit is holding up. Not a side-boob in sight, thank goodness).

Finally, enjoy the moment.

Celebrities are people too, and (surprise, surprise) when you engage them in conversation they will actually respond. I told Chef that we’d also just come from London, and he asked us where we lived and what we do. He even asked about the state of the NHS.

Sadly, he did not offer us a 20% discount on our meal so Nando’s, you’re still our favourite restaurant.

The whole experience was absolutely surreal, especially since we’ve been obsessed with watching Hell’s Kitchen reruns on Netflix this year.

I think my sister was tempted to ask Chef Ramsay to say “its raaaaawwwww” just to hear what it sounds like in person, but she didn’t want him to think we were stupid. I would have gone for it if I thought about it.

So there you go, everything you need to learn about celebrity sightings. All smiles and say cheese, everyone!