All Star Impressions Show

Now, a television show so culturally and intellectually impoverished that the producers should be tried by a hastily reconvened Nuremburg court. It's the All Star Impressions Show. The small-screen embodiment of Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil".

Imagine, for those of you who didn't pay witness. The idea, bizarrely, was for D-List celebrities to impersonate Z-List celebrities. Mick Jagger's ex, Jeri Hall, pretending to be Katie Price. Claire Sweeney imitating Stacey Solomon from X-Factor. Mackenzie Crook from genre-defining sitcom The Office giving the world his Steptoe and Son, a 70s television show for racists and homophobes.

It did, however, contain two of the greatest images of the decade, mere days before its end. The first is a parody of the Sugababes, but with the Hon. Dianne Abbott MP (who I actually bloody love) playing Keisha. I think it's not an over exaggeration to say, omfg.

The second; Joe Pasquale performing as Lady Gaga.

I feel violated. But I think I like it.

So much <3 for Gaga, San Francisco, Gays, Xmas

A retweet from some glorious dipso/discomaniac:

@wubbolicious got so drunk celebrating b4 @ladygaga 's concert in SF i blacked out and missed the whole thing! :(

But isn't that the true spirit of a Gaga concert/Christmas?

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

Reasons Sweden Rules the World #467

The ridickalously delectable Alexander Skarsgård.

There is a lot that could be said about this particular Scandinavian sex-monger, but right now I'm just going to sit here and watch him lounge.

A Very Important Part of The Internets

Lady Gaga's stylists's blog. The unexpectedly male Nicola Formichetti is the creative genius behind much of La Gaga's most gloriously insane get-ups, and documents them all on his blog, not only showcasing such unfairly overlooked Gagas as

Antler GagaBurning Piano-Playing Gollum Gaga and

Jacket With Her Own Face On Gaga,

but also thoughtfully informing us as to the designers behind classics such as the polar bear coat (Benjamin Cho- SANTA TAKE NOTE). That's not even to mention the odd RPattz styling. What a hero!

Hell For Leather

Lady Gaga: Your Majesty, I hope you appreciated my homage to your distinguished forebear, Elizabeth the First.

The Queen: Bitch, you know I love you.

Gaga/Gregg Mashup

VainGlorious Bastards

I watched Inglourious Basterds recently, and immediately decided to write about it. No doubt others have written extensively, criticising Tarantino's increasingly grotesque revenge motif, or admiring his bravery for keeping the dialogue almost entirely in French and German. But what can I do. All I really care about is the hats.

Here are five of the best.

1. The gorgeous Mélanie Laurent.

The very model of intellectual Parisian chic.

2. Diane Krüger.

Is it morally acceptable to fancy these men in Nazi uniforms? Pervy minds want to know.

3. Julie Dreyfus (who played Sofie Fatale in Kill Bill 1).

Ch-ch-ch-cheetah face. Love it. Love the whole concept.

4. Michael Fassbender.

War finds yet another justification. Take that, Thomas Aquinasshole.

5. Mélanie Laurent again. Doivent-elles les femmes porter le voile?

BAH OUI

Some Moves For Your Dance Vocabulary

'I'm gonna dance this one out.'

The woman who invented punk meets the equally musically significant Nicola GirlsAloud, who gushes to Grazia: "The fact that I have white skin and red hair is my thing." I think this explains the air of mutual disappointment.

Daily Digest

Once again, the Mail has outdone itself in bitching about fitties whilst nevertheless exploiting their beautiful, naked bodies.

I could just about swallow Jan Moir's griping about gay people. But you malign Eva Green over my drop dead gorgeous body.

These Charming Men

A clip now from the glorious BBC drama, Beau Brummell: This Charming Man. Beau has just met Lord Byron, and they sleep with a courtesan, and in the morning have an apocalyptic discussion punctuated by Byron's insistent refrain of "come back to bed."

The programme centres around three of the most powerful Georgian men, George, George and George (Brummell, Byron and Hanover). The Prince Regent is invited to watch Brummell dress, and becomes a bit infatuated, before Beau meets Byron and becomes infatuated with him, driving the poor Prince to the heights of jealousy and petulance. It's almost completely imagined - based upon Byron's quip that the three great men of the age were Brummell, Bonapart and, of course, himself. But it is sublime in the most Burkean of ways.

Daily Digest. Reading The Daily Mail. So You Don't Have To.

The Mail has the impertinence to ask of Ben Whishaw "Will he be the finest actor of his generation?"

To paraphrase my third favourite Scot, "Look at him: do you know what I mean?"

One Line Book Review

A lit student's wet dream. Beautiful. Read it.

Glampyres

When I saw the title of Stephen Marche's piece in Esquire on Wednesday, with the thesis-title "Vampires as Gay Men: New Moon's Homosexual Vampire Connection" I clasped my hands with joy as I imagined teaching this in a few year time. In a primary school.

In the article, Marche explains the recent fangirl obsession with vampires - to which we fitcritics are perhaps not entirely immune - by invoking young women's latent desire to french with gayboys.

Duh. I mean, what girl doesn't dream of her gay boyfriend vomiting on her?

Another new tag now - to go along with Copper Beauties and one that I'm thinking of simply calling Penis Envy (and which should probably be tagged on all our posts) - called WOT. It is for mind boggling goodness such as:

Andy Warhol posing with Truman Capote.

I reckon Tracey Emin and Alain de Botton need to step up their game...

An Open Letter To The Yuppies In The Northern Quarter

DRESS MORE RIDICULOUSLY OR GO HOME PLEASE, YOU ARE VISUAL FILLER.

Copper beauty

Quite literally from tip to toe

Courtesy of thesartorialist

Minor Heroes

As my 24th year begins, I feel it's time to take stock, consolidate my position, and systematically destroy my enemies.

And yet as I grow older, the competition is also getting younger. Some of them are barely pubescent, and -- as demonstrated by my top-3 list of stylish minors below the fold -- most possess the kind of reckless insouciance and lack of irony which naturally hinder the man in his twenties.

I Wanna Do Bad Things With You

I was initially dubious about True Blood, the new vampire show from Six Feet Under's Alan Ball. For one thing, its timing smacked of jumping on the Twilight bandwagon for some easy money; for another, it appeared to have my beloved Anna Paquin (of Oscar-winning The Piano fame) cast as the blonde eye-candy.

From the first episode, however, True Blood subtly announces itself as the thinking person's vampire-based entertainment (granted, not that hard a sell, when you consider the competition). Set in the Deep South (and with the accents to match) its vamp situation nicely draws parallels with both civil rights and LGBT issues, from newspaper headlines such as 'Angelina Adopts Vampire Baby' to placards reading 'God Hates Fangs'. Introducing the best friend character as a Naomi Klein reader is cool, but pretty lazy characterisation, when you think about it- I still haven't forgotten One Tree Hill presenting Chad Michael Murray as a 'brooding serious type' by having him quote Shakespeare and Hemingway. Hmm.


On to the mightily photogenic leads: 100-odd year old Vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer) and the telepathic, cute-as-a-button Sookie (Paquin). If I didn't know the series was based on a book I'd think they'd given Sookie that ridiculous name just for how brilliant it sounds when Bill says it- 'Sookehhhh'. Moyer won my admiration recently by riling the 'Twihards' with an interview in which he dismissed that sparkly Pattison bloke as "a pussy... the diet coke of vampires". From the gore to the (fairly graphic, fairly frequent) sex, True Blood blows Twilight out of the water in the sexiness stakes. Throw in a gorgeous title sequence and great bluesy theme song, and I'm sold.

Welcome, Disciples

After blowing the internet's mind and senses this past year, we've relocated to pastures new. Enjoy.