LC!

Hello,

The second tour video of our American trip is here for you to watch with your eyes. I have also reposted part one in case you need reminding of what we did (dicked around on a tour bus)

The treats to look forward to are….

Gareth asking a girl to the prom

People throwing their Bras and Pants at us in Pomona

Our American television debut. OH YEAH THATS RIGHT.

to see it BIGGER go here

to see this one go Tom Hanks on you click here

and goodbye

Ellen x

Hello self indulgent rant and platform in which to expunge and berate all the things which have been pissing me off in life this week…

This image you see before you  is not taken from GQ,Zoo, Nuts, Maxim or the classier pages of Horse and Hound, it is in fact a image in this months Total Film magazine.

The last time I checked Kelly Brook’s bit part in Piranha 3-D was not important enough in the film world to warrant a four minute contemplation LET ALONE a four page spread and tag line cover reading “Bikini’s in the Movies” by Kelly Brook. I would not mind if that was attributed to a vast essay dissecting the finer points of iconic clothing within fimilic moments by a credible actress but NO, its Kelly Brook saying ” Whatever, I’ll dress up as Princess Leia for you.” (actual quote)

I would not mind if it was a small picture in the “stuff thats going on in films this month” section but there is no valid reason I can think of which requires that much space and that many large scale images of a semi naked Kelly Brook. She didnt impress me in Smallville and she wont impress me in Piranha 3-D, and this magazine is not meant to be a naked lady booby magazine, I have nothing against those, this is meant to be a “modern guide to movies” supplement. Even Megan Fox would have made more sense….

Whats next? Is Heat Magazine going to start discussing the decay of the textile industry in order to pull in keen knitters who may have overlooked it? Is Bizarre magazine going to start promoting ladies who abhor  spandex for the more traditional reader? Is More magazines position of the fortnight going to be replaced with “funny cat of the week” for the lolz cats generation? (Not a bad idea) EH EH

To balance out this fall from grace I demand a four page photo spread of a naked William H Macy  with the tag line “Genitals in the Movies” by William H Macy, in which he discusses his favorite images of genitals within modern cinema and recreates those shots.

Ellen x

As some of you may know I am running a 5k next saturday with my mum to raise money for cancer research and as some of you may suspect I am about to hassle you for some pennies….

(A recreation of the event)

Myself and my mother have been wittering on about doing this race since my first year of university where I was not regarded as the fittest or most active of people, but in recent years I have started exercising and doing a jog here and then to try and regain some health BUT registering for this finally gave me the motivation to give up smoking. So thats point one of why this is a good thing.

The second point is this. Cancer is a indescribably awful bastard of a disease and 5 years ago this May my nan died of it. She was an altogether awesome Irish lady who raised seven children pretty much single handedly and still found time to drink 25 cups of tea a day and in later years insisted everything I bought from the high street would have been cheaper/nicer if I had gone to Oxfam. She kind of turned out to be right about that whole vintage thing.

I would like to raise two hundred pounds for this altogether worthy cause in her memory and so far I am fifty pounds off, so give a few minutes to increase your karma rating and give my mum a reason to have gone to those lunchtime running classes. Please click HERE

Ellen x

I’m gonna skip the greetings and get straight to the point of this post (of which there are two)

POINT ONE

Tonight is a momentous occasion in tele-visual history for myself (yes bigger then Eurovision) it’s the ending of LOST!

I summarise the entire show like thus: Six years, Four laughs and One likeable character.

(All four laughs were had when Juliet died in case your wondering)

I like to think of Lost as a long term relationship, it started out full of passionate and fire but suddenly got really arduous and dull and the only way to get through it is to lie to yourself and your friends about how awesome the sex still is.

I dont want to be upset with the amount of time I have spent watching badly scripted circular conversations, flashbacks/forwards/sides and Lockes man boobs, but tonight is the last time I will hear one character apologizing for causing another characters deaths through stupidity. Thats right, I will be attending a Lost viewing party.

There will be three of us.

I am avoiding spoilers by not typing Lost into google, ignoring twitter and facebook and not going places where people talk inanely about stuff. I will mostly be sat inside with earmuffs on today.

Here is my friend Johnny’s Lost Viewing Party Food Menu

- Doctor Jack Shepherd’s Pie

- Hurley Fries

- Man In Black Pudding

- Jacob’s Crackers

- Smoke Monster Munch

- Uncle Ben’s egg fried rice

-Sawyer Sauce served from a Not Penny’s Gravy Boat

-bottles of Jin (and Jim Robinson’s Squash as a booze free alternative)

- to celebrate the end, a few lines of Charlie

This is my contribution

Anticlimax pie with a side of “was it worth it” fruit salad

POINT TWO: Me and my mother are doing a 5k canter/trot/run/jog/walk/skip together for Race For Life and goddamit we need some sponsership, so if anyone has a couple of quid spare and they want to get the best karma ever then click here and let your conscience lead the way/enter some bank details

Ellen x

Tomorrow we are playing a show in Portland which is famous for these things

• The Ground Kontrol Barcade which sells Liquor AND has arcade games AND has pin ball machines.
• Voodoo Doughnuts which sells erm…doughnuts BUT really special and creative ones. When i visited this shop I ate the “Old Dirty Bastard” but am morbidly fascinated by the “Bacon-Maple Bar,” because I have always dreamed of dying of a heart attack face down in a delicious sugary pastry

• The home place of Bitch Magazine!

Myself and Kim are both fans of this fine non-profit quarterly magazine which describes itself as a “feminist response to pop culture” and is truly a purveyor of interesting, informative and funny articles which don’t patronize or pander to its readership of people with a sly interest in feminism.

It first caught my eye when we were on tour in Florida last January where my child like brain was drawn to the immediacy of the title, and the proclamation that was an article inside discussing the validity of Jane Eyre as a feminist.

There was a refreshing lack of articles on penis vowing and how to be less shit in bed (not that there is anything wrong with those articles but when you have read as many as myself and you still suck in the bedroom department….well its a sad day.) Instead it was a variation of topical and well written articles, reviews and took more than five seconds to read and I was hooked.

However Bitch magazine survives purely on donations to keep being really really good and so they need YOUR HELP, MY HELP and EVERYONES help to stop Cosmopolitan and Glamour swallowing up my entire brain, because I JUST CANT HELP MYSELF.

The 1st Saturday of May is Free Comic Book day and I took advantage of this at Big Brain Comics in Minneapolis AND i saw some Morris dancers in the town centre. This day is working out pretty well.

Hope your free comic book day is joy filled

Ellen

Greetings,

I do wonder what my life would have been like if I had been stuck in Cardiff right now instead of looking at a man unloading a Miller Lite van in Madison, Wisconsin. I would go with “less eventful.”

As you can tell we have made it here safe and sound and undead from the ash cloud.

Fitting back into the American way has been an easy transition and aside from the obvious things about the US I missed (Portion sizes, thrift shops, independent record shops, Teen Cribs) there is always the surprise of how receptive the audiences are. I know I sound like a bit of a gushing suck up (which I am please love me) but from our first gig at Maxwells, NJ to Convington, KY last night things so far have been adrenaline filled.

Our house for the next couple of weeks is a mahogany furnished tour bus complete with fridge, microwave, mirror ceiling (for all the narcissistic sex i imagine) and a bus driver called Marty. Marty is awesome and I imagine his last name is McFly but I have yet to ask. HAHAHAHAHAHA. Im sorry.

When we first boarded the bus and clambered to pick our bunks we discovered masking tape outside each one to put our names on, this tried and tested method prevents people drunkenly climbing into the wrong bunk but I imagine it takes away the fun of the “slutty opportunist”. However this has not yet prevented Rob putting things in my bunk whilst I sleep for a lol, I woke up at four in the morning a couple of evenings ago to find his scanner at the bottom of my feet. Oh how I laughed in my sleepy confused haze. Its fine. At some point I will have my revenge! Or get distracted by something else and move on with my life…either way give me your suggestions….

I have taken some of your advice on places to visit and did in fact go to the frozen yogurt cafe in Boston and a Zoo in Washington which NONE OF YOU SUGGESTED. Shame on you. I love zoos. I found this abandoned in the Reptile House.

If you want it back Keith so you can finish filling it in and answer the question on what lives in deep oceans then get in touch. Other then that everything is fine, we have been given some delicious vegan cake fare along the way (Thank you Griffin!) and Cymbals Eat Guitars are a pleasure to watch every night. In fact the fair town of Madison has been designated inter band bonding time so I must go and prepare my witty anecdotes.

Love to your mothers

Ellen x

Hello, so this is what happened with the  whole Planes vs Volcanos vs Los Campesinos! adventure…

Although we had to cancel some shows which sucked a lot, we have made it over in the end

(fingers crossed…I posted this before we boarded the plane)

see it bigger here

It is a shame in some ways though because I had planned a trip to Weston Super Mere with my mum…but I guess this will do instead.

Ellen x

Dear USA,

Due to the volcanic situation in Iceland we are grounded in Heathrow with fingers crossed to fly tomorrow but here is a hastily thrown together visual update (better then CNN, Sky News or anything Fox will tell you)

On the upside the sunset will look lovely tonight so apparently every volcanic ash cloud has a silver lining HAHAHAHAHA

im sorry

Ellen x

I think its better then the first one.

But Vimeo made me seperate them.

Bastards

Keep the suggestions coming in, if there is anything in Burlington you would recommend that would be great. Also someone from Princeton, can I have a tour of Princeton?

You know Im going to go and try and be a spy in Washington.

And win lazar tag Barney style. In a suit.

and people of America, go see Kick Ass. Changed my life.

And if you want to see it bigger go here

Thanks x

Ellenx