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.