Gently parting the milky-white thighs of 2011

I can only apologise if, as a result of me featuring on here photos from Jake's latest film, you went to see Love and Other Drugs. It's only the 3rd day of January but this is already a very strong contender for Worst Film Of The Year. Or possibly Decade.

I don't know where to begin in criticising it, because criticism implies there is a coherent entity to dissect. Whereas this was a sort of pulpy car crash of competing genre conventions with a leading couple playing coyly cute.

There were a couple of positives: Oliver Platt as Jake's apparently mindless boss provided the only really truthful emotional punch in this wildly dishonest film, with an unexpected and powerful monologue on the human condition.

Though in fairness to Platt he is a vastly under-rated genius: see him, for instance, in equally under-rated Huff, where his scene-eating performances steal the show from literally everyone else, including the not insubstantial Hank Azaria (who also appears in a bloodless role in this dreadful film).

Oh, and Jake shows us his bottom quite often and in loving detail, and we also get to gaze on his perfectly-formed thigh. No Jake-bits, though. Again. And he's trimmed his magnificent chest hair, presumably to tame it for the laydeez. Devastating.

Hair trimming reminded me of She's Out of My League, a truly generic movie starring up-and-coming comic actor Jay Baruchel. Whose geeky persona I generally rather like.

She's Out of My League is about a hundred times better than Love and Other Drugs, and about a thousand times more honest. That's despite it being a very dishonest film indeed.

Jay, for instance, gives us a comedic highlight of 2010 (or, if you're only just getting around to watching it, of 2011), when the straight character he plays has to get his straight buddy to lend him a hand to shave his balls (don't ask). His buddy takes a pride in his work which in most circumstances in life would be praiseworthy but, here, is deliciously creepy.

But that is not Jay's arse: no, apparently he is so concerned about his dignity that he had to have a butt-double. Dignity?! He's just played for laughs a scene in which he prematurely ejaculates in his beige linen trousers, and then has to hide the semen stain from his prospective in-laws.

That subtlety (I can't believe I'm using that word to describe a bog-standard multiplex comedy) is something desperately lacking in Jake's movie.

Although, in fairness, She's Out of My League also features the unspeakably cute Mike Vogel (seen here in another film, giving good body):

Mike has appeared in a few multiplex-friendly movies, including the unspeakably awful Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants in which his thighs were without question the twin highlights of the entire film.

I wonder who'd win a "Best Thighs" contest between Mike and Jake?

Now that's a movie I'd pay to see.

More signs of the times

A pair of insane Norfolk signs. First up, one telling you that the 20mph zone you have just travelled through is ending and you are now entering a, er, 20mph zone:

What's more insane is that the sign is at the head of a short residential street that's a dead-end and only ever has room for one car at a time. The chances of you reaching even 10mph are quite small.

And then there's this gem, alongside the long-distance path that clings to the sea wall as it stretches for long, desolate miles around the edge of the Fens, separating that marshy land from the battering assaults of The Wash and the North Sea:

Here's the sign in context, on a fenced section of the path at West Lynn:

What I love is that the Council felt compelled to warn the wearers of stiletto heels that this long-distance coastal path may be unsuitable for such footwear. And went to the trouble of designing a rather elegant warning symbol:

What other improbable hazards should they be warning of?

• That the trailing edges of full-length ball-gowns may snag on sharp edges?
• That bustles may not fit through the narrower sections of the route?
• Or, I dunno, that the release of nuclear explosions is prohibited under the general regulations governing the use of long-distance coastal paths?

You've gotta love Norfolk.

Sign of the times

Half past one the other day at King's Lynn railway station (please, never the baby-talk "train station"), and this was the main departure screen:

Two things: why was the 1056 still showing on the board, despite that and two other later trains having long-since left, on time?

And secondly, where the Hell is WENXTSE?

I know this part of the world very well, but even I had to work out that, of course, it stands for Wells-next-the-Sea. Why have they done that? And how can it be a "Rail Replacement Bus Service" when the last railway line to Wells (or even anywhere near it) was removed more than three decades ago? How passenger-unfriendly is that?

Still, what else can we expect from this appalling company.

Molesto-porn

My current obsession with what I think of as "molesto-porn" continues.

This sequence is a particularly, um, moving example of the genre.

I love the way our delightfully hairy-legged "victim" appears to be rather dozily waking up, not sure what's going on.

The gentle touching and the sight of a ball of rope doesn't seem to have inspired any fears, but suddenly realising his arms are being secured does seem to have snapped our man out of his reverie.

This look is priceless for so many reasons:

But I have to say, covering someone's face with their own undies is a bit cruel.

This "victim" is rather more fully enriched with penile endowment than my simple tastes would have preferred, but I'm not complaining.

And, judging by the smile on his face, nor is our "victim" (and how could I complain, when I have the compensatory loveliness of that exuberant bush of pubey goodness?).

But I think the pornographer has, now, betrayed us, these next images leaving behind any suspicion of victimhood (which is essential for the fantasy) and, instead, plunging us into a simple world where someone is willingly tied-up and being wanked off.

Although most porn can of course be reduced to such vulgar essentials. Let's end with this:

There is still a considerable amount of desire left, I have to say, which is all due to the loveliness of the central "victim". You see: there's always the possibility of rescuing something from the flames.

One day

Some things just stick in my mind for no apparent reason.

When I was a kid I read a National Geographic article about what was then the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldavia, and I was engrossed.

This lushly photographed land of rich greens despite its strangeness reflected somehow the flatlands of my own youth, but I was particularly taken with the bit you can see on this map described as "Bessarabia", just to the left of the Crimean peninsula:

It might have been the novelty of finding an "Arabia" outside the Arab world, but I was transfixed.

Today Bessarabia has disappeared, carved up between the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, but for a brief period in the early twentieth century before being engulfed by Romania and, then, Soviet Russia, it was the Republic of Bessarabia.

Its location has ensured it has been regularly invaded and overwhelmed, but such is the geographical logic of a community bordered by the Dniester and the Prut that it has returned several times from its vassal status. Oh, and it wasn't all flatlands: the lower reaches of the Carpathian mountains and the deep river gorges saw to that.

It's always been dirt poor: in Soviet days it was far and away the most backward of the western "republics", with eyewateringly low literacy rates and a peasant economy barely out of the Medieval period.

But it also had some surprises -- including this, what was, at the time, the longest bridge in Europe:

It's one of those strange places where relative agricultural prosperity somehow never translated into reasonable living standards for the whole population.

Massive grape and grain harvests, and vast herds of cattle, just seemed to disappear, certainly never much affecting the serf-like peasant classes (and yes, I know they were fishermen, not peasant farmers. I'm just using what I've got to hand).

I have never visited this part of the world, but I still harbour a childlike desire to go.

There is something about the romance of the words that is compelling: from Transnistria to Transylvania, Moldavia to Bessarabia. One day.

Your chance to help someone else

I need your help.

Full bragging rights to anyone who can name the film from which this pathetically poor still has been grabbed. I'm obsessing but getting nowhere.

Happy New Year!

As I write this it's New Year's Eve and, being an unimaginative sort of chap, I can imagine no other way to welcome in the New Year than by carrying on doing the same thing that has proved so unsuccessful over the preceding twelve months.

Yes, it's time for a random round-up.

This post of a couple of dozen or so random images is by way of thanks to all those kind readers who have left comments, many of them not altogether abusive, over the last year.

To you I dedicate this cornucopia of modestly-sized winkies (plus a couple of token mutants, just for a giggle).

But there are no mutants in this opening sequence - just check out the modestly-proportioned todgers on this next pair of chaps (the lady doesn't have a todger so, for the purposes of this post, you can just pretend she is not there):

This next image is named "froid" (or, as our French friends would have it if they spoke English, "cold"). I don't think the aspersion they are casting (that his winkie has shrivelled so it must be a cold day or cold water) is necessarily fair or accurate:

Although it's so difficult to judge temperature from an image, without using the clothing (or nudist) clues:

I don't know how this next one got into this batch:

Still, no time to take it out now...

That was a token tattoo for my friend Tot A.

This next chap is part of a small series. I was sure I had posted the series somewhere or other but I can't find it. Which is good news for you, because you get to see him all over again:

This looks to me like some sort of mad swingers party. But I can't take my eyes off his swinging low-hangers (I imagine they're swinging, anyway):

Here's a mutant for you: is it just me or is that penis almost impossibly fat?

This is more like it:

I figured you'd want a change of pace by now, so here's a pair of images of the same chap:

Admittedly only the angle of shooting has really changed, but he's worth two photos, I think.

I love the hard "gangsta" look on this next chap's face -- it's just so hard to carry it off when your junk is dangling in the wind, though:

This chap has learned that lesson and is keeping a firm grip on his business, but that doesn't prevent us admiring his lightly haired chest:

No chest here, and far too much aggressive action with a razor for my tastes, but he's a cutie otherwise:

And, to end, all muscled hardness:

I hope you have an inspiring and inspirational New Year, with much contentment, many joys, and as much prosperity as you can muster in these recessionary times.

May the winkie be with you in 2011.