The Pizza Express Master-post.

I've dined at Pizza Express a few times in the last month (pro tip: if you attend Pizza Express using Nectar or Tesco points, one point can earn you 4 times what the point would get you in store, so it makes sense to trade your points in for Pizza Express credits!), and I thought I'd share my thoughts on each of the individual pizzas/pastas/meals I tasted there!

Sloppy Giuseppe: the green pepper is super-spicy, and complements the beef well.  The pizza could have stood to have more cheese. 7/10.

Toy review: NICK WILDE FROM ZOOTROPOLIS SOFT TOY (Disney Store)

I like to make my lime green bedroom as me as possible. On one wall, I have Chelsea FC pictures, as well as a still of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. I've started decorating the opposite wall with personal photos, and a poster of Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman.

Evidently, I like to be reminded of movies all the time. ❤️ And, given how enamoured I was with Jason Bateman's character in Zootopia, it made sense to pop down to the Disney Store on Oxford Circus, and treat myself to a Nick Wilde soft toy for £12.95. 

Here I am the very day I procured the furry dude:

Film review: OF HUMAN BONDAGE review (John Cromwell, 1934)

Philip Carey (Leslie Howard), a man with club foot, embarks on medical school, having been told he has no aptitude for artistry. One day, when out with friends, he meets a tarty, coarse waitress named Mildred (Bette Davis). Despite her unattractive personality, her unusual but not altogether becoming looks, and her barely-disguised contempt for his physical condition, Philip falls hopefully in love with her, an attachment which she flagrantly abuses.

My Seven Favourite Songs from Disney Musicals

I’ve restricted the options to just songs from Disney musicals, as opposed to songs that appeared in Disney non-musicals, such as ‘When She Loved Me’ from Toy Story 2, otherwise it would have made a hard task even harder (I love ‘Le Festin’ from Ratatouille)!

07. Hellfire – The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

A left-field shout, given the crux of this song is about the sexual frustration a pious priest feels towards the beguiling gypsy Esmeralda. But I had to nominate Hellfire because it’s memorable, taboo, and tonally, so recherché (what other Disney film features the line ‘he made the Devil so much stronger than the man’?)

Essentially, the message of Hellfire is ‘if I can’t have her, no-one can’. It’s every possessive ex-boyfriend, immortalised in a Disney song, and fits in neatly with the plot, as dastard Claude Frollo’s unsatisfied urges are his motivation for a Domino effect that leads to Paris burning. The religious imagery employed in Hellfire only go to compound Frollo’s sense of sinful lust for a woman he both despises, yet will do anything to possess.

I like songs which shine a torch onto the hypocrisy of religion, and Hellfire offers an insight to this holier-than-thou priest’s mindset. Turns out, his thoughts aren’t so holy, and the choir-like vocals accompanying Frollo’s disturbing soliloquy underscores this irony nicely.

(On a slight film ratings tangent, the likes of fluffy Frozen and Tangled getting rated PG when The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by far one of their darkest films, was only a U, is mighty misleading. It ought to be at least a 12 for the creepy overtones in this song alone).

06. Prince Ali – Aladdin (1992)

Restaurant review: MASALA DABBAS (Orpington)

Having just opened earlier this month, Masala Dabbas aims to bring authentic Indian dining to Orpington, on a High Street that is filled to the brim with 'Indian' dishes that have actually been liberally doctored to appease western palates.

Brigsby Where?

Add Brigsby Bear to the list of films I’m going to need to watch purely for BBFC research purposes (like with Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry).

Brigsby Bear is a PG-13 in the States and a 12A in Ireland, yet a 15 in the UK. This in itself is not that bizarre; The Shallows also got those three ratings by the three respective ratings boards.

But it’s the classification reasons that I find bizarre. In their short insight, the BBFC flagged the ‘scene of drug misuses, moderate sex references’.

As with sex, I’ve detected a clear hierarchy of strictness when it comes to drug use at PG-13/12A. In terms of strictness, it goes IFCO > BBFC > MPAA.

The MPAA are the most lax when it comes to drug use, having passed Ray at PG-13, when that got 15 in the UK and Ireland.

David Fincher’s Oscar-winning The Social Network, a PG-13 in the States and a 12A in the UK, got a 15A in Ireland. The Irish flagged ‘the scene of strong drugs misusage’ as the principal reason for its 15A. 

Indeed, many might be surprised that The Social Network only got a 12A in the UK, given the scene in question is a Harvard party, where one girl snorts cocaine off another’s body.

Restaurant review: MA’ PLUCKER (Soho)

I went to Ma’ Plucker this week to catch up with two girlfriends. To that end, it was a decent venue to choose for a Monday night: not busy, and we picked a spot at the back, where there was enough space around us for us to put our bags (rather than let them get dirty on the floor, which is what would happen at somewhere like Barrafina).

The way that food is ordered under the ‘3 way chicken’ system is that you choose your chicken (rotisserie chipotle, crispy coated buttermilk, pulled slow and low or cheese flan), you choose a base (salad, bun or maple waffle) and finally a side (MP chicken skin gravy, chipotle chilli sauce, Kansas BBQ, herb dressing or maple chilli glaze), and then it’s all cooked and bought out for you.

Because I don’t like mixing sweet and savoury things, and I never order salad when I dine out as I think it’s a waste of money (you can literally buy a bag of cabbages and apply some dressing to it from Tesco for like £2), I had the house bun, with chicken breast. This was how it looked:

The chicken was arid AF

The Times' review of MOTHER! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017).

Uploading Kevin Maher's review of the polarising Mother! because The Times has a paywall. (click on the image for enlargement)

Although I've not yet seen the film, the closing paragraph sums up the pseud that is Darren Aronofsky (a man who's work I've uniformly despised, bar the decent The Wrestler) remarkably well, I feel.

OOTD: getting my 50s boogie on.

What I wore to dance the night away in Bloomsbury!

Dress: Warehouse

Restaurant review: TRULLO (Islington)

Situated very close to Highbury and Islington overground station is Trullo, a rustic, understated, yet very welcoming Italian restaurant.

Trullo has a reputation for its friendly staff, and indeed, the people who waited on us were absolutely lovely, helpfully giving tips whilst making sure we were fully stocked with regards to water. After completing one of our dishes (the pasta one), I asked to keep the plate on the table to polish off the sauce using bread, which they seemed perfectly cool with. I dig that; at a poncier place such plebbish behaviour might have earnt me and eye roll from the waiters.

For starter, we shared the mozzarella dish, pictured below:

Restaurant review: BARRAFINA (Covent Garden)

On my birthday (18^th April), I ventured out of my cheap and cheerful and/or Groupon-bought dining comfort zone and celebrated in style with an altogether more upmarket dinner at Barrafina.

The restaurant specialises in Spanish tapas, and after the nightmare that was Salvador and Amanda with all their short-cut taking, I was naturally, a little hesitant.

I needn't have worried; Barrafina has restored my faith in Spanish tapas in London.

Here are some pictures:

Review: ALL SHOOK UP! (Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes)

Fun night outs dancing in London were a staple of my late teen and early-20s, and I wished this to be the same for my brother. So last night, me, Tom, and two of my friends hit the London’s 1950s & 60s Party at Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes for some good old fashioned rock n’ roll and jive-style boogying.