Bizarre Bus Adverts We Have Seen

But what does it mean? Will you having a smear somehow save the life of this be-goatied Adonis? Perhaps the message is that transgender women should be aware! You too can get cervical cancer even if you have cut off your boobs and developed a taste for green woolly jumpers! Maybe they think young liberated women will only look at an advert if it has a fit man slapped all over it...

Or are they just implying that fit men from Southern Europe are Chalmydia Marys who will ply you with ouzo and let you run your fingers through their gleaming locks before having their wicked way, leaving you alone the next day with a hangover, V05 under your nails and a minor-yet-bad-if-left-untreated STI ?

It is most perplexing, but I take comfort in the thought that a 'Joey from Friends' storyline has become a reality.

Abercrombie and Fuck You

When I heard that Abercrombie and Fitch had opened a store in London, I put it in the same 'huh' news catagory as 'the A1 past Hanger Lane is a bit sluggish today' and Jessica's status is '...' according to Facebook.

I vaguely knew A&F to be a Gap-ish like clothes shop in America that people seem to love, even though as far as I could work out it sold either bland as fuck clothes or highly branded bland as fuck clothes.

Yesterday however, I happened to be in the area, so decided to visit the London A&F store. Within two seconds of entering it shot up from being a thing I had sort-of-heard-of-kind-of to being my official Worst Shop in London and Possibly Ever. - a title snatched away from Halfords in Friern Barnet Retail Park with considerable aplomb.

Where to start? Oh, well as you enter, you can queue to have your photo taken with a shirtless male hunk and keep the polaroid to show all your friends back home. Why? So you can tell them you shagged him? So they can be impressed that you stood next to someone with a six pack? Because some of his fitness might rub off on you and make you look less like a fat tourist in a straining pair of chinos and sweat drenched 'I heart London t-shirt'? *shudder*

This isn't apparently just a random act of whoring: A&F is known for it's good looking staff and presumerbly being pimped out to hormonal girls is part of the job description. I did wonder about this alleged hiring policy, as it appeared to be very much in action in the London shop and surely smacks of discrimination if true. Is anyone who reads this really fat/hairy/muslim/tattooed/all of the above? Please apply and let me know how you get on.

Anyway, inside. You know what I hate more than bland as fuck branded clothing in a million different pastel colours? I hate being lost in dark crowded nightclubs while shit trance music thumps so loud I can't hear my own angry thoughts.
Random? No, no, no, THIS is Abercrombie and Fitch, London. Confusing, as A&F is what one is supposed to wear to a chase a labrador across a beach in the Hamptons with your wholesome looking boyfriend, so the Ministry of Sound get up is beyond infuriating.
They even have two of their Stepford employees dancing on a balcony as if to say 'Hey, this is really fun! I always like to rave it up in the middle of the day wearing stonewashed bootleg jeans and a cornflower blue vest top!'.

It's a wonder the staff get time to actually fold jeans in between being groped and pretending to be 'aving it large', but I gather it's actually an honour to work in A&F as it means you are 'fit'. Fit and presumerbly also as thick as two short planks to allow yourself to be exploited in such a manner for £6.50 an hour.

Shops like A&F with concieted good looking staff (Urban Outfitters is another prime example) also irk me, as until a few years ago, I would be seriously intimidated about going in them, actually being worried about what the staff would think of me. Fortunately, now I am not just confident enough in myself to know I am as 'fit' as them, I also don't fold t shirts for living and could buy that whole pile of muthafuckin' folded Micky Mouse stencilled abomonations if I wanted to.

edit: Ooh I just found THIS article by someone at the Daily Mail *hock, spit* who went undercover at A&F. He said what I said but in a more boring way.

edit: while looking for a suitable image for this entry, I came across their website description - 'The highest quality, All-American lifestyle clothing for aspirational men and women'.
I think I just vommed in my mouth and waged war on the West.

All Types of Amazing

spotted in Weston Super Mare

:( Fallen Idols

It's such a bizarre sociological..paradox.. when someone famous dies. Lots of people feel very deeply affected by it and are genuinely sad, yet the main reason we liked them is purely because they were good looking. Ultimately. Which is maddeningly shallow.
That said, it is weird when an old teenage crush dies. Almost nostalgic. And what with poor old Heath and Brad Renfro last week, Christian Slater and the lead singer of the Seahorses (ahem) had better watch their backs..that's all I'm saying

Person of the Day - Pril.

Because it's her birthday, she's lovely, and she pulls the best faces of anyone I know!

Girl Power! (plate)

Thanks to a free voucher from work I went to a Powerplate class for the first time yesterday. To those of you who are not vapid urbanite females aged 20 - 29, working off Oxford Street, disposible income, no kids, Sex and the City boxset owners blah blah blah*, a 'powerplate' is the object to the left; a platform that vibrates really fast causing your muscles to spasm and so tone as you squat, thrust and do other faintly embarrasing exercises on it.

Now I have never really gone in for this kind of thing before, and by that I mean I have never owned one of those weird belt things that similarly cause muscle spasms via electric shocks or been wrapped in mud and clingfilm..basically expensive activities only a brandname away from medieaval torture. There was the incident with the 'Slimatea' where I didn't consider exactly how drinking tea could make you slim**, but on the whole I generally subscribe to the idea that if you want to be slimmer you have to get up off your fat arse, leave any notion of pride at the door and head down the gym.

But I digress. So what is a powerplate class like? Basically it is a group of five or so of slightly hippy (as in pelvis) deskladies plus the obligitory buff northern trainer to shout 'eey oop lasses yer doin' great!', a small room which is akin to the inside of a discoball and five or so pink little faces with expressions like horrified kittens confronted by a bee as they stare transfixed at their own wobbling images in the many reflective surfaces. Oh and there is mint tea on tap.

It was a little bit harder than the website suggested (more on that later) but thankfully the 25 minutes flew by.

What was weirdest was the sensation after the class, which I can only really liken to being in shock...a weird weightlessness/shakiness which I haven't experienced since I was evacuated from Kings Cross and saw a bus explode a couple of years ago, but without the obvious FEAR and mental skulduggery that 'shock' usually entails.

So yes, now it is 24 hours later, and I guess it worked as I am practially crippled - well my bum keeps twinging and I can't lift my arms, the usual masocistic signs that I take to mean GOOD.

So will I go back? Not sure. If anything it is an expensive (£20 for 25 mins!) way to lose any sense of self esteem and get an achey bum, but I think in these vapid grande skinny wet double latte times we all need to be taken down a notch or two. Even if it does mean you will shell out a whole load more on other pointless weightloss quackery.

p.s you can check out the website HERE if you so wish, but I warn you now, you will want to beat the web designer, PR company and whoever else was involved over the head with a metal bound version of the Female Eunich until they are a bloody pulp. It is the most patronising, chic lit More magazine lambrini HELL of a website. Quite why they haven't marketed it to the wannabe Carrie and Samanthas who at least possess half a brain and maybe an unread copy of the Female Eunich is beyond me.





* Biche does not own aforementioned boxset, sadly she does not need rolemodels for her slide into superficial oblivion
** laxative

Virtual Biche!

Look! It's me (albeit a possibly quite svelte me with oddly red hair) It's from the Hennes website...

That's all really, watching the repeat of the Apprentice which is stressing me out even though I already saw it last week. It's slightly weird watching it now because all the besuited chumps are only a few years older than me and my dear friends, none of whom as far as I know talk about 'business levels' 'proactivity' or wear cheap suits.

A year ago it all seemed so alien, but already the talks of salaries, work and whatnot are however quite familiar, so perhaps this is the future! Perhaps in three years time we will all be synergising and profit margining! In nasty suits! Whilst shouting into Blackberries!

Still, virtual Biche will always be the same, oh yes, virtual Biche in her skinny jeans and slightly unflattering top that is usually only worn to the gym...she will never change!

Photo of the Day - The New Joker

Apparently this is some makeup test which has allowed the world to see Heath Ledger as he will look when he steps into Jack Nicholson's old shoes to play the Joker in the new Batman film.
I am usually quite a fan of ole Heath, but not too sure about this look - he doesn't have Jack's eyebrows and looks stoned rather than mad. Actually he looks like an Aussie stoner who has been beaten to death for being gay and then dredged from the bottom of a creek. Sexy.

Still, I suppose you win some you lose some, Christian Bale is better looking than Michael Keaton, so maybe the fit/ming ratio (naturally what I judge film quality on, rather than narrative, plot and the like) will be the same.

People of the Day - Released British Fitties

..except for the woman who looks like Jessica Stevenson. And the guy next to her who looks like Uncle Fester.

Update: It appears it wasn't quite as pleasant as the Iranians made out. Oh well, all is well now and it is a good excuse to post a photo of Lutenant Carman, whose pleasant nature and good looks had me phwoooaring at the tv this evening, in a terribly uncooth and Christy-like manner. I have to admit, I did fall short of putting on a mockney accent and stamping the floor like Bugs Bunny however.

Uncharacteristic Moment of Phwoooar

Now those who know me know I am completely uptight and British when it comes to matters of attraction - indeed the most you will usually get out of me is a 'hmmmm nice eyes' or 'oh I must put the kettle on' whilst my compatriots dool, holler or put on a mockney accent and go 'I'd do him mate, he's well fit' (Christy* thou knows who thou art)
However, this is Dominic West and he is very fine AND he's a Brit in an American drama (the Wire) putting on a yank accent, which is up there with 'hmmm nice eyes' and whatnot in the uptight anglo assesment of buff ting-ness.

So there.

*This is a clear provocation to see if Christy ever actually reads my blogs because she always says she hates my shameless self promotion so that she deliberately doesn't. She's too busy doing the Lambeth walk and having a butcher's hook with her mince pies at all the Brad Pitt fellers dahn Old Kent Road.