Manolo Aptitude Test

Very few people are able to refer to themselves in the third person, and Manolo Blahnik is one of them. The Manolo loves the shoes and the shoes love him back for turning them into works of art. But before you rush over to gawk at the Manolo (and his uncanny resemblance to Gunther from the TV show Friends), make sure you are worthy enough by taking the Manolo Aptitude Test.

QUESTION 1
Manolo has stated that he has long been celibate as it helps clear his mind and focus his creativity. However It is an industry secret that Manolo Blahnik had a lovechild with a designer groupie and the child was named:
(a) Manilow Blahnik, after his favourite singer
(b) Manila Blahnik after his favourite type of office folder
(c) Margolo Blahnik after his favourite Simpsons character
(d) Manpolo Blahnik after his favourite item of apparel

QUESTION 2
The minute anyone puts on a pair of Manolos, they become:
(a) Sexy
(b) Mucho Sexy
(c) Sexier than scented candles, massage oil and Barry White music
(d) Too sexy for my hat what do you think about that

QUESTION 3
A recent survey found that if the Manolo titanium heels were available, which of the following incidences would markedly increase:
(a) stabbings of stalkers or muggers
(b) stabbings of unfaithful lovers
(c) stabbings of unfaithful lovers' lovers
(d) stabbings on the dancefloor

QUESTION 4
Madonna once said that Manolo's shoes were as good as sex and they lasted much longer. Which of her partners' stamina was she referring to when she made this statement? Please limit answer to 10 pages.

QUESTION 5
Madonna is no longer a fan of Manolo Blahnik since he made which one of the following disparaging remarks about her acting ability:
(a) Watching Madonna act is like watching Mandonna perform her greatest hits but without the camp value
(b) I would rather wear a pair of Jimmy Choos than have to sit through Swept Away
(c) Her involvement in film should be limited to drycleaning Guy Ritchie's clothes when he comes home from fox-hunting
(d) I would only pay money to watch Evita if Antonio Banderas was playing an animated cat version of Zorro.

QUESTION 6
A pair of Manolo Blahnik costs from US$450 upwards. Imagine that you are a struggling office serf without the benefit of fashion industry discounts and access to private sample sales. Calculate how many instant cup noodle meals you must have before you can save enough to buy a pair at retail.

QUESTION 7
Manolo provided several pairs of Timbs to Jennifer Lopez for use in her videos during the making of her album "This is Me...Then". The unholy trinity of a stiletto heel, a Timberland boot and an overexposed celebrity launched one of the hottest fashion trends in the hip hop community. In a rare display of appreciation, J-Lo penned a song dedicated to him called:
(a) If You Had My Timbs
(b) Shoes Don't Cost a Thing
(c) M to Tha L-O!
(d) Manny from the Block

QUESTION 8
Manolo Blahnik is to shoes as:
(a) Thor is to thunder
(b) Kim Jong-Il is to the bouffant hairdos
(c) Michelangelo is to frescoes on chapel ceilings
(d) Paris Hilton is to STDs

Horsing about

Gambling on horseracing is quite the popular pasttime in Hong Kong. I never realised what a horse-crazy place it was until one day when I walked into a boutique asking for the bridalwear section. They apologised and said that they didn't stock clothes for horseriding. With that, I stomped my foot, threw my head back and let out a loud whinny, then galloped out of there as fast as I could.

Next Tuesday will be an important one for racegoers because of the Melbourne Cup. It is the race that stops the nation of Australia and gets it so drunk that it throws up in its expensive hat afterwards. The fashions on the field are always worth a snark but let's forget about all that whoresy organza and taffeta for a second to reflect on some true horsey goodness.

Pony chair

This Finnish chair is so so very cute. Almost as cute as a real life mini guide horse which I just want to put in my pocket and take everywhere with me. Before sitting on the Pony Chair, I would put attach hair extensions to its head and carefully twist them into a French braid, then stick glittery, colourful stickers all over its body. And I would call it Sugar Rainbow Brite Kisses. Wow, there's the whole afternoon gone already just thinking about all the adventures we would have in Ponyland.

Horsehair boots

Austrian designer Helmut Lang is quietly confident that his horse hair boots (available in black too) will become as coveted as Dior's saddle handbags and the Gucci horsebit bag. Oh those Austrians, always trying to emulate the wackiness of their German cousins only to end up looking stiff and awkward like the bristles of these boots. From the animal's perspective, as if being turned into glue wasn't humiliating enough.

Horse pillow
Inspired by the Godfather movie, the severed horsehead pillow seems to take up more than its half of the bed. Now I know what Matthew Broderick, Danny Moder and whoever Jennifer Garner is dating these days (Ben Affleck?) feel like when they wake up in the morning.

Britney Beads

Always on the lookout for scapegoats, the Roman Catholic Church has blamed celebrities like David Beckham and Britney Spears for starting the trend of wearing rosary beads as a fashion statement. What they don't know is that David Beckham actually needs to wear 4 sets of rosary beads in order to stave off the soul-sucking ghoul beside him. As much as I think that Victoria generally has great style, grinning like that is enough to make John Woo to exclaim "At last, I have found my Skeletor".

As for Britney, she needs all the help she can get from any religion available. The full Rosary is made up of 4 sets of 5 "mysteries", each mystery representing significant episodes in the lives of Jesus and Mary (the Bold and the Beautiful respectively). Seeing that she was once a virgin like Mary, Britney has decided to devise her own mysteries based on the trials and tribulations of her own life, which she then uses in her personal meditations and prayers during her acne spa visits. In sharing these mysteries with us, she hopes that others will become followers of the Ex-Virgin Blessed Stepmother Britney.

JOYFUL MYSTERIES
The Annunciation of Baby One More Time
The Visitation of the Virgin Britney to Rolling Stone
The Naivety of the Britney
The Implantation
The Finding of the Boyfriend in the Timberlake

LUMINOUS MYSTERIES
The Bimboism of Britney in the Shops of LA
The Sign at the 24 Hour Wedding of Vegas
The Preaching of the American Dream
The Transmogrification
The Prostitution of the Same Sex Kiss

SORROWFUL MYSTERIES
The Acne in the Garden
The Scourging at the Box Office
The Clowning with Python
The Carrying of the Crutch
The Cameltoe

GLORIOUS MYSTERIES
The Resurrection of the Prenuptial
The Ascension of the ebay Bids
The Descent of the Holy Milkshake
The Consumption of the Kava
The Coronation of Britney as Queen of All Things Classy

Scary cats

Hey hey hey it's Fat Fidget (yeah yeah yeah gonna have a good time). Not anymore because after eliminating lasagne from his diet, Fidget the British cat managed to slim down from 22lb to 11lb.



Even Limecat who isn't usually impressed, blinked grudgingly in slight awe. Personally though, I am reminded of those photoshopped weight loss ads where the before and after shots don't look anything like the same person. I even suspect the "after" cat was what they found inside when they did a C-section on Fidget.

Assuming that this is the same cat, why would Fidget need to lose weight anyway? Definitely not to boost his self-esteem because cats are already born with an innate sense of superiority. Plus it's not as if he needs the extra energy for lying around all day and occasionally batting half-heartedly at the tv screen.

When I checked my calendar, it dawned upon me that he has slimmed down in time for Halloween in order to fit into his scary costume. Everybody knows that cats, (especially black cats), as witches' familiars, play an important part in Halloween. There is nothing dumber than seeing two clueless practitioners in the dark arts of skankery armed with the wrong type of animal.

Halloween is a time for cats to strut their stuff and make the night their own personal Mardi Gras. The plethora of Halloween pet costumes for sale on the internet means that Fidget is spoiled for choice, like an Oscar nominated actress deciding what to wear on the big night. The Halloween costumes aren't quite up there with the genius of Cat Prin (which is more casual daywear anyway) but should still be able to cause any human to step back slightly, and say "gaaaahhh what the..."


Go from Fat Cat to Bat Cat! Holy guacamole Bat Cat what do we do now? Meow. Horror of horrors Bat Cat, is there any other way? Hisss. It looks bad, Bat Cat, are you sure you know what you're doing? Purrrr.


I feel a Joe Pesci moment coming on: How am I funny, like a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? What is so funny about me? What the F**K is so funny about me? Tell me. Tell me what's funny.


Behold Hell Kitty, who crouches malevolently by Satan's cloven feet and laps milk daintily from a hand-painted saucer.

Of course, there are some cats which don't need Halloween costumes at all as they are scary enough on their own. For more scary cats, visit www.mycathatesyou.com

Fashion Roadkill of the Day: Vol 13

A cautionary word about netting. Apart from, say, as a tax-deductible legging for workers in the sex industry, there is no excuse for it to be worn in public. I can probably pretend to understand why you would want sleeves of stretchy netting because maybe you have a rare skin condition like epidermal asthma which makes it difficult for your pores to breathe under normal fabric. But I am at a loss why the netting needs to make a Back By Popular Demand appearance down the bottom.

It really looks quite miserable in its partial attempt to overlay the polka dot pattern, as if it's thinking "you expect me to add mystery and allure to that?" And it's quite right because it's turned the top half of the mini ra-ra skirt into a haphazard game of tic tac toe. Anyway let's try and look on the bright side, the more fashion roadkill that get snared by tuna nets, the more dolphins we can save from that predicament.

Hooters Shanghai

Update: My workload has suddenly increased to the point where I actually have to do stuff. Consequently posts over the next few months will be shorter so instead of just being insane, they will be inane.

My friends, it is all happening in Shanghai these days. Sure, Europe has its dark dining while the US has its bed dining. These might appear to be high concepts designed to transform dining into experiences that are more sophisticated than one Soft Serve Cone, extra lard please, and don't be stingy on the sugar. However they are just creative ways devised by scheming restauranteurs of stealing your money. Under the guise of dark dining, they can serve you anything they scraped off the bottom of a rubbish bin and call it haute cuisine. The Michelin stars are right there in front of you, it's just that you can't see them! Bed dining is intended to lull diners into a false sense of relaxation until their tastebuds fall asleep, making them unable to distinguish the bland from the bloody delicious.

Instead of pandering to the highest common factor, China has opted to introduce some wholesome and hearty cuisine in the form of Hooters Shanghai. Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined! Please note that this is different from something that is delightfully tacky and refined, like a European royal wedding (seriously, did the woman in blue come with her own personal swarm of hornets?).

The first few weeks of business at Hooters Shanghai is expected to be busy. There will be some diners who are genuinely interested in buffalo shrimp and their world famous wings (probably the same people who read Playboy for the articles). However the bulk of the clientele will be guys who have trouble walking properly at the thought of being served beer by an attractive female in a low cut top and short shorts.


Hang on, isn't the picture above slightly worrying, and not just because of the cutesy V sign which pisses me off to no end (we get it, the Allies won WWII, the German and the Japanese lost. Now let's move on, shall we?). I'm just not seeing enough stretch. To be a HOOTERS girl, you need to be able to put on the owl top and stretch the wording until it reads H O O T E R S. These are real HOOTERS girls - the guy can't even keep his eyes off the calendar and I'm pretty sure he's not checking out what day of the week his wedding anniversary falls on next year.

The HOOTERS Shanghai girls are in real danger of becoming the runts of the large-breasted litter. We might as well give up now and change the name of the restaurant to WONTONS or DIMSUMS. Rumour has it that the waitresses are being paid in breast enhancement creams and pills, but the process of organic growth takes time.

Recognising such physical shortcomings, HOOTERS Shanghai has decided to focus on friendliness instead. But friendly is such a broad term, even broader than the wide expanse of China. It can span from "Hi, how are you?" to "Here's my number. My bisexual girlfriend and I like to have naked pillow fights. You can watch or join in. Whatever." Hmmm maybe they just need to rethink the uniform for the Shanghai branch and have a different sort of racy orange outfit.