The Swimming Pool Library

Here at FitCrit we can hardly watch a queer-themed film without sighing: "The gays sure do love to swim."

Once you release a video, I gotta make some gifs

Gaga's video for Telephone came out today. Naturally it is incredible - and in a post-modern mise-en-abime we have come to expect from Gaga, the video already anticipated all our reactions. Hit it, B.

It's actually so dense and allusive that we will probably be teasing it out for months. For example, this nod to Michael Jackson - coming hot on the heels of the hint last week that she might collaborate with David Bowie sometime in the future - is one of many references to film, fashion and capitalism; both earnest and ironic.

So expect a long, tedious and pretentious analysis in the near future. But for the moment, just make like this chef and dance...

(Bonus gifs after the jump.)

Fit Knit

Sometimes I wanna live inside these knitting pictures. They are so comforting and anodyne; not trying to sell you a body image or a lifestyle - apart from the undeniable fact that French people are chic and cool.

The way they describe things is also fun. They really like bell sleeves, and darn-tootin!

The set-in sleeves are delightfully bell-shaped. All in all, the prettiest tunic yet.

Applied smocking on bell sleeves is the outstanding feature of this eye-catching two-piece.

There's something poetic about them.

Mother, May I?

This rather wonderful Victorian novel - Robert Surtees' Ask Mamma, or The Richest Commoner in England - advertises itself thusly:

IT may be a recommendation to the lover of light literature to be told that the following story does not involve the complication of a plot. It is a mere continuous narrative of an almost every-day exaggeration, interspersed with sporting scenes and excellent illustrations by LEECH.

Every day exaggeration? With sporting scenes? And no plot? WHERE DO I SIGN

Vanitas Vanitatum

Snog, Marry, or Avoid may well be the cultural highlight of the decade, old or new. It has already given us the wondrous Scottish Barbie, and now it slouches towards Bethlehem to give birth to Clinton Earle.

YUSS U R!

WHO HAIR

It seems that the casting directors for Doctor Who have a little obsession with hair. One of the first things the last two doctors have said in the role was to enquire whether they had ginger hair, and Steven Moffat - the new lead writer of the show - is reported to speak of "the Hair" in terms of reverent awe.

 It seems twas ever thus. Paul McGann reports that "Matt [Smith] said that in the auditions they could not stop talking about his hair. They were telling him his hair was wonderful — that’s exactly what happened to me when I got the part."

Here at fitcrit, we're not exactly suggesting that actors should be cast based purely upon their hair. Well, I suppose that's exactly what we're saying. So here are all the Doctors, stripped bare to their essential hair. Feel free to insert your face anywhere you like, although remember to send us a copy.

A Footnote to Faust

"All art is a footnote to Faust. I have no idea what I mean by that." Woody Allen.¹

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?"