I feel like I may have been born into the wrong era. I'm thirty years old - thirty one in a few months - and some times I feel like the most uncool person in the universe! I shall explain and let you decide.
Although I still enjoy watching Sex and the City, Friends (although I had to have a large rest from Friends seeing as it was on about fifty million times a week and I was starting to get bored with it!), NCIS, Strictly Come Dancing, Lewis, Midsummer Murders, Downton Abbey....oh wait, oh dear yes, do you see what went wrong there? For every "cool" programme I like there's about four "uncool" programmes to counteract. I have a rather large back catalogue of old movies in my DVD stash that nobody ever seems to want to watch except me! The problem nowadays is that special effects have taken over real acting and suspense. I went to see The Expendables when it came out (it was my then boyfriends revenge for having made him watch a chick flick the previous week) and I honest to God could not figure out what the hell was happening. I think the plot went something like this; Ageing degenerates in combats shoot at people and then stuff blows up and then they shoot some more people, then this old man who looks like the bloke who played Terminator shows up for five minutes and says something in a weird accent and then they go up in a helicopter and stuff blows up again. Was I close...? All that noise and nonsense. God I do sound old....!
Hollywood in the 1950's looked so glamorous, what with it's beautiful and graceful leading ladies, it's charming and handsome leading men, the funny and non-offensive comedic supporting actors and dreamy scenary. Of course this was not always neccesarily the case in real life; a lot of the charming leading men were misogynistic alcoholics, some of whom prefered a counter-lead male to a female, and the glamorous leading ladies didn't look so glamorous on the casting couch...! But even so, it was pretty well covered up at the time and no matter how badly they behaved in their private lives they still remain fixed into history as silver screen legends with a grace and beauty which is rarely replicated today. Hollywood now is just the same as ever in that it's all about making money and exposing/ruining new talent. She will drop you just as quick as she will raise you up. But it's lost a lot of magic. Don't get me wrong, I'm impressed by how much we've moved on in the special effects stakes - Ray Harryhausen would be gobsmacked if he saw what they could do nowadays - but I prefer my films to be focused on plot and storyline.
Now let's move on to dating. God how dreary. There was once a time when, if you were of a certain class, you'd have a husband picked for you. A rich and successful husband. No dating, no messing. Now I know there are down sides to this, for a start you can't always guarantee you'll fancy "the chosen one", but it sounds like a much simpler life. Sometimes I really hate dating. The pain of trying to figure out what to wear! Do you dress up or do you go casual? Or maybe smart/casual?? What if you dress up and he goes casual? Or vice versa? ARRRGH! If I go for a meal on a first date I always worry I'm going to dribble or have something stuck in my teeth. Then there's the sussing out of what you can or can't say in front of your date. I know there are certain things that are a definite no no; casually mentioning how many kids you'd like to have and what you'd like to call them, or how you like to slouch in your onesie whilst watching Neighbours - absolute definite no no's. Much more on top of this too. So having someone chosen for me, who is quite prepared and ready for marriage without question, sounds pretty reasonable really.
I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm fussy, but I do have certain expectations. I like a guy who makes me laugh but knows how to be serious when the time is right. But, maybe it's because I'm getting older, it's becoming more and more important to me to find a bloke who is a real gentleman. I'm talking about opening doors, pulling out my chair (without the intention of trying to make me fall on my arse), offering to pay for meals or drinks, etc etc. I want politeness and good manners and thoughtfulness, but also strength and the knowledge that if I were in trouble he would be able to put up a fight for me. I want a man who has never owned a pair of trackie bottoms in his life. I want a man who is smart, intelligent without being smarmy, and not too bad looking. Basically, I want James Bond. Unfortunately, Rachel Weisz has just nabbed the last James Bond so I'm pretty screwed. Cowbag. I wish I could say I remember a time when men were real men but, alas, I can't.
Fashion-wise I think my taste alters from one day to the next. I can be fairly up to date and I do like a logo t-shirt and skinny jeans (would be nice if I had the skinny butt to go in them) but I believe people should only dress down when they're going to bed - but that's only if they're retiring alone! A lady should always make the effort to look nice for their man, even more so in bed! If England had better weather I would wear those amazing big fifties-style dresses every day. Well, maybe not every day - I also loved the fashion in post-war twenties America. Sleek and elegant. Very unlike my actual personality, but lovely all the same. I remember being totally shocked one evening when I went to see a show at the theatre in South Wales. There I was in a nice, albeit simple, dress, with my best jewellery on, and all around me were people in jeans! Even more tasteless was a man in Bermuda shorts! What kind of a world are we living in where people wear beach wear to the theatre??? Am I starting to sound really old-fashioned now...?
Finally, music. I do like some modern stuff - Rizzle Kicks, David Guetta and Nicky Minaj are up there on my playlist - but not a lot of the songs on my playlist go much further than 1996. If you rifled through my CD's (yes I'm that old I still own CD's) you will find mostly eighties compilations or artists such as Erasure, Fleetwood Mac, Duran Duran, Blondie and suchlike. I'm also very much into reggae, must be my East London roots! Someone I spoke to recently, who is younger than me I might add, said they also liked reggae, but then continued on to name Dubstep artists. Dubstep isn't proper reggae!!!!!!!! Remember proper Ska music? I'm not talking about Lily fucking Allen, I'm talking about 2 Tone Ska! The Specials, The Beat, Madness! Proper music!!! The stuff you kids listen to nowadays is just a noise! Oh dear god there I go again......
So there you have it. I am a self-professed old-fashioned dame in a swing skirt who likes a bit of Nancy Sinatra or Johnny Cash on the radio, is hoping for a real gentleman to ask my father for my hand in marriage, am dying for a jolly good variety show comeback on the telly box, and hoping to see the next Gloria Swanson and William Holden on the big screen.
Now, where did I put those Werthers Originals.......
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