Australia's Next Top Westie Scrag Series 4 #4

Right. Settle down, Year Four. You – with the chewing gum – in the bin, please. Now – first, some housekeeping:
Whenever you hear a ‘DING!’, it means that someone has said something bitchy.
Whenever you hear a ‘DONG!’, it means that someone has said something stupid.
Whenever you hear a ‘ZING!’, it means that Charlotte or Shiny Alex Perry has just made a comment about one of the modules.
Whenever you hear a ‘ZZZZZZZZZ’, it means Jonathan Pease is talking.

Now, on with assembly. This episode is like being in primary school again, where the stupidest girls gang up on the unconventional girls, water is a weapon, hardly anyone has boobs, none of the boys are interested in girls, and everybody’s teeth are crooked. Knick Knack. Have a smack. It’s the Give A Scrag A Bone episode of Australia’s Next Top Model.

• Leiden is tall. Leiden has broad shoulders. Leiden has short hair. Leiden does not sip particularly greedily from the Girly Vocabulary Schooner. Leiden, in order to avoid her sexuality being called into question, should perhaps steer clear from sentences such as “Demelza looked like she was going to break down in tears, which is why I stuck my tongue out, just to relax her”. To be honest, I have no idea which side Leiden’s bread is buttered on. I bet you fifty bucks she’s on top, though.

• Let’s put it out there right from the beginning: Demelza is a bitch. Demelza, however, is not a smart bitch, or even a particularly good bitch. She just doesn’t know how to do anything else (save perhaps for hanging her mouth open and keeping her eyes as far apart as possible), so she just keeps plugging away at her I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I crusade. She picks on the weak, targets the different, and gets her vacant mates to back her up, and we’ve all seen a thousand of her before. Demelza tries to cause friction by rubbing her two brain cells together, but only succeeds in exposing herself as a mental giant of Lilliputian proportions. I, on the other hand, am allowed to be a bitch, because I work in an office and I can spell. See how that works?

• JP arrives at the Module Manse in a suit, because Modelling Is A Serious Business (ZZZZ), and hands Samantha a Joydhi–Mail to read – something quoted from Nadia Comaneci about hard work, talking the talk, walking the walk, and taking buffalo steroids. Demelza says “I don’t know who the quote was from, but I definitely agree with it” (DONG).

• The girls are sent to Oxford Art Factory and are met by stylist Trevor Stones and model/catwalk trainer Mink, who has no surname but quite possibly her own set of stones. Hands up who remembers petulant Mink from Series 3? Now, keep your hands up if she scares you right through to your colon? Mink’s job is to assess the girls’ runway walks (primarily by sneering), to show them how it’s done (left foot, followed in almost all cases by right foot), and to speak like she’s swallowing a python that’s swallowing a horse. She’s also confusing bejeezus out of me as she says “This isn’t the first or the last time that you’ll be seeing us in this business” (except, of course, for those of you who haven’t met Mink before, in which case it’s... y’know... pretty much the first time), and “we WILL remember you. Or maybe we WON’T”. Right. So, leaving aside those girls for whom this is either the first or last meeting, you either will or won’t remember them. Sooo we’re pretty much back at where we were just after you said “hello”. Fine.

• Almost unbelievably, a scene involving girls walking up and down in a room has some highlights:
o Demelza says “I have a big problem with walking in a straight line” (DONG). Mink agrees, spitting “Honey, I hope you don’t drive like you walk”. This would involve sticking a carrot in the tailpipe. She comes good, though, and walks up a storm for the rest of the day. I hate it when that happens.
o Alexander, attired today in a man’s hat and scrotum, is disappointed when Mink tells her that her walk is “over-acted, over the top, and slightly embarrassing”. I love it when that happens.
o Leiden says “I suck”. Mink says “You look like you want to hit us”. Well, sure, but that’s just because she’s big and kind of violent-looking.
o Alamela walks as if she’s a robot pony, like those ones you put money in outside the supermarket, but infinitely less fun to ride. Mink comments that her walk was like cabaret (although without JP here, there’s no Liza with a ZZZZZ), and asks Alamela how she finds walking in heels. “Diff-i-cult” says Alamela the Automaton, after computing the exact degree of difficulty. “But not im-poss-i-ble”.
o The scrags then have to walk up and down in sand. Now, I know that watching a bunch of girls that you’ve just seen walking up and down a bit walking up and down a bit more on a different surface may sound interesting, but I’m momentarily distracted by some other sand.

• Back at the house, the Maturity Dial is turned all the way up to Pre-Teen as Demelza ambushes Alamela in the kitchen with a water-bomb, in exactly the same way that people with enough imagination to amuse themselves don’t. After briefly running her screaming software, Alamela quickly returns to selecting a piece of fruit from a bowl and eating it. Now, Alamela is a strange girl, it’s true. But if everyone picked on strange girls, Amy Winehouse might never have become famo... okay, bad example. Alamela’s passive acceptance of inane and transparent bullying irritates Demelza to no end, so she pours water on Alamela’s head from a big vase (just like they do, like, in parliament and the United Nations and stuff). Alamela either doesn’t bother reacting or has shut down for a reboot, which drives Demelza crazy, causing her to wail “You’re completely different to everyone else in the house!” Well, yes. Her head is covered in vase-water, for one. I’d love to spend more valuable paragraph space on this garbage, but suffice to say: DING! DONG! The witch is dead to me.

• The sun rises over this ridiculous bullshit, and the girls pile into the Tart Taragos for a trip to Priscilla’s Model Managment to meet Priscilla Leighton-Clark in a sentence that already contains too many Priscillas. Despite having met Priscilla before, Jamie is excited about the “second time we got to make a first impression” (DONG). Joydhi is there, and announces that a “good model is only as good as her agent” (although hopefully not as... er... well, fat) and that the scrags will be dragged around the city for some goy-sees. The girls clump into groups and visit Bowie Wong, Nicola Finetti and Marnie Skillings, because names like ‘Smith’ and ‘Jones’ are for losers.
o Bowie Wong is awesome. Listening to him is like coming in halfway through the grand final of a haiku competition. When Leiden almost stabs a stiletto through his parachute pants, he says gently “Be careful my sample, please”, which makes my mouth smile and my eyes shine. When Caris walks for him, he says she is “So like a tap water”, which makes my life complete and all lesser metaphors obsolete. I’m totally getting a Bowie Wong ringtone so that he can be with me always.
o Leiden puts on a dress back to front. I love you, you big muscular dopey bogan.
o Belinda explains her awkwardness to Bowie Wong by saying “I only just learnt to walk”. Bowie doesn’t compare her to a tap water, which makes me sad.

• Alyce wins the go-see challenge, and the other girls criticise the way she puts her hands up to her mouth when she gets excited. This is like getting miffed at Henry Moore for a spot of dodgy welding or, for the lowbrow amongst you, like being irritated at Johnny Depp for breathing through his nose. Alyce wins a six-thousand-dollar pearl necklace (shut up, I’m not going there), a bunch of frocks and a photo shoot with two friends (Demelza and Rebecca, known collectively to themselves as ‘The Bitchketeers’ and by me as ‘Borderline Illiterate’) for Body & Soul. The rest of the girls have to take turns walking on treadmills in high heels, which is why this show is like the soundtrack to my life.

• Let me paint you a picture. Girls (“winners”) in backyard photo-shoot primp and giggle for the camera in trumped-up sweat pants. Girls (“losers”) take turns high-heel-treadmilling and pressing their bare buttocks against the glass balcony. I ask you – who are the real winners in this scenario? Oh. Oh, I see. The girls who still have their pants on. No, fair enough.

• A Joydhi-Mail hoiks the girls off to a phoy-toy shoyt, and the modules are met at the studio by Shiny Alex Perry and photographer-I’ll-happily-make-a-height-exception-for, George Antoni. Today’s shoot will be for Alex Perry’s ‘look book’, showing his designs to best effect. Shiny Alex gets tough on dem bitches arses, telling them that he doesn’t care if this is a competition, today is costing him sixty grand (minus GST, plus Botox), and that anyone who doesn’t fit into the size 8 sample sizes can sit down and have a coffee for the rest of the day. Oh, Shiny Alex. Your face nearly moved then. PS: your frocks are gorgeous and I’m going to the ARIAs again this year. I’m just saying. Flat white no sugar, thanks.
o Belinda looks floppy and uninspiring. Shiny Alex puts it best when he says “Kill me now. Just stab me in the neck”. ZING!
o Alexander poses by jutting out his jaw and emphasising his shoulders. Nice move, dude. Anyway, I’m letting you off this week. I haven’t called you an arsehole once. Nope. At no time have I even implied that you’re an arsehole.
o Leiden, after finally managing to get a frock to fit around her ribs, causes JP to comment that it ‘pretties her up’ and that she shouZZZZZZZZZZZ.
o Caris is gorgeous and might win, and if someone doesn’t get those fucking braces off her teeth right now, I’m calling the police.
o Alamela is too small to fit into a size eight, obviously because there is only a thin layer of organic matter covering her titanium endoskeleton, and it doesn’t do carbs.
o Demelza, Alyce and Alexandra are kept back after school for more shots, as they were Shiny Alex’s favourite modules – Demelza and Alyce because they look good and pose well, and Alexandra because Alex Perry’s eyes are obviously just painted on.

• Because I have no actual bullets available, I’m going to have to settle for bullet points for this next bit. I’d appreciate it if you’d help out by imagining bits of bitch brain and bitch skull spattered all over the bitch wall. A nasty case of thrush, at least:
o After some degree of bitchiness towards Alamela during the treadmill punishment, Demelza says “I could be nicer to her, but I don’t want to be”.
o After the photo-shoot, due to a number of very, very boring misunderstandings, Demelza is accused of being too fat, Alamela is accused of being too thin, someone’s fake, someone’s a bitch, and now Alamela’s crying, because she’s put up with too much bullying, and she’s had enough. Real tears. Like, not brake fluid or nothin’.
o Demelza laughs, because she has made someone cry. This makes her an unmitigated c*nt. See, I’m not even putting a ‘U’ in that word. Lord knows, there’s enough of the fucking thing in the ad breaks.

• Finally the scrags are summoned to the Elimination Velodrome, where Joydhi is all ready to read the prizes (including some SPF15 chapstick and some window tinting) from the Fuschia Folder and introduce the judges. Charlotte is in vitriolic red. Shiny Alex Perry is in high-collared white, looking like a pair of expensive sunglasses with a large, highly-buffed haemorrhoid. Guest judge Priscilla Leighton-Clark is.. there. Guest judge George Antoni thinks about my underpants, and so he should.

• Joydhi starts off by chastising the girls for their bitchy behaviour this week, and from then on, this part of the show is just so much fluff in between choice Charlotte and Shiny Alex burns. ZING!. And furthermore: ZING!. Charlotte calls the girls thick, tells them to pick up a book every now and again, and names them the ‘Dapto Dogs’ because of a) their pack mentality, and b) something about Dapto, presumably. Shiny Alex mentions that Alice from Series 3 was also misunderstood by the other modules, who are now probably working at Muffin Break Erina Fair. From photo-perusing to deliberation, it’s like Tit-for-Tat Tennis (admittedly more tit than tat), with:
“You will get laid in that dress, honey”
“Well, that dumps a pile of crap on some of them, doesn’t it?”
“What a moose. I wanted to get an air rifle out and shotgun her”
“If her modelling sucks, hopefully her bag-packing skills will be better”
Stop, guys. You’ll make someone cry. Right, Caris?

• Eventually Joydhi summons the girls back in and doles out phoy-toys until only Blind Belinda and Bitchketeer Bec are left. Belinda is told there’s a block between her and photographers, and Bec is told that she needs to spend time in the gym and eat correctly. Three million years pass, and Belinda is arsed. Bye, Belinda! Mind you don’t turn around and tell all the other modules to fuck off on your way out! Oh. Huh.

Next week, there’s more tears, more fighting, and more giant beavers. Prisms. Schisms. Euphemisms.



You know who’s not so like a tap water? PetStarr. Go read her own befunnied take on the modules over at Bland Canyon. She’s like a margarita with like, three pieces of lime.