Australia's Next Top Westie Scrag Series 5 #9

I think I must be jet-lagged.
I turned on the television expecting to find some contemporary, non-cliched images of London, a stylist that gives actual and credible style advice, an ex-model mentor that doesn’t talk out of an arse-shaped space-ship, and some quality photographs. What I got was, well… this shit. I never thought I’d say this, but I MISS YOU, GEORGE PEASE. Fasten your seatbelts and observe the non-smoking signs, it’s the ‘God Save The Scrag’ episode of Australia’s Next Top Model. I mean it, man.

· After the will-she-quit-won’t-she-quit hoo-hah at last week’s elimination, Cassi Van Den Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead tells the camera that she doesn’t care about losing friends in this competition. That is such a coincidence. Because I totally don’t care either.

· Can we just talk about Cassi’s stuffed toy frog for a second? I’m excusing the obvious mange, because I fully support the fact that it’s been thrown in the pool at least once. It’s just… I think the frog has more air-time than Saint Sarah this week. It’s in the background of about half the shots that made the cut. It’s clutched to Cassi’s chest. It sits on the couch behind interviews. It haunts my dreams and my peripheral vision. Somebody please set the fucking thing on fire already.

· The modules pack their bags for London, get on a plane, stop over in Abu Dhabi for some lobster and facials, and then finally arrive at Heathrow. After some budget-rupturing, scene-establishing shots of some signs saying ‘Arrivals’, the girls emerge from customs and are swarmed by paparaz… well, by a bunch of people with photographic equi… look, there’s one guy with a camera, okay? One guy.

· Gerry DeVeaux meets the scrags at the airport. Now, if you’re wondering who Gerry DeVeaux is, he’s a part-time music guy, part-time fashion guy, part-time Britain’s Next Top Model judge and full-time douche. In fact, in my notes for this week’s show (I know! Notes! You have no idea) there’s a phrase in the middle of the page that simply reads ‘what a fucking wanker’. Take your sunglasses off. Take your hat off. Take your shiny parka off. Take your brown corduroy, I-go-to-a-special-school-in-a-mini-bus pants off. Also: shut up. No more talking. Because when you talk you say things like “I was ever so pleasantly scandalized”. Yep. I think ‘surprised’ is pretty much the word you’re looking for there, Ger. Toss.

· “Hey, guys! Guys? It’s me, Steve. Steve from the tape room. Look, sorry to interrupt your important Granada and Foxtel meeting, but you won’t believe what I just picked up for five bucks that you can probably use in one of your shows. It’s some stock footage of London from 1982! We might have to edit out most of the images of like, punks and Doc Martens and that, but there’s some awesome Big Ben stuff there. Yeah? Guys?”

· As the girls are observing London Town from the window of their hotel-bound car, they make me realise that I want all my travel guides written by them and only them from now on.
Adele’s book would be mostly about architecture:

Whilst Cassi’s would be a romantic romp, following the lives of two star-crossed lovers who get a rabid fire in their loins whenever they see building materials that remind them of each other. For him, it’s Stonehenge, which rockets him directly into ecstatic nostalgia about his girlfriend’s teeth. For her, it’s bricks and blocks, as her beloved is a humble bricklayer. It’s a complicated story, with a simple title:

Tahnee’s book would be all about the wonderful colours to be observed in Old Blighty:

And Clare’s would just be some incredulous pap about an outdated, clichéd tailoring affectation from horsey days of yore:

· The modules finally arrive at very swish hotel indeed, Sandersons, and Cassi thinks it’s appropriate to drag her mangy stuffed frog through the foyer. This is like singing “You Are My Sunshine” whilst skipping through a Francis Bacon exhibition or, for the lowbrow amongst you, like putting Holden parts in a Ford. The girls are shown their penthouse digs, and a minor legal stoush occurs at room-picking time because of a basic misunderstanding of the concept of ‘bagsies’. Clare wafts through the rooms, saying “I feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, but after she was a crack whore”, showing a basic misunderstanding of that entire film. The only crack in the movie is the underpants kind, and the only thing Julia Roberts uses in the bathroom is dental floss, because of the strawberry seeds. Which is one of the reasons that movie sucks arse.

· The next morning, the girls get a call from Saint Sarah, telling them that Gerry DeDouche will meet them in the foyer in ten minutes to teach them all about ‘the London Look’. An American guy. With an American accent. Wearing a baseball cap. Telling them about the London Look. I’m just putting it out there, is all. He takes them to TopShop, and Adele is impressed because there are a lot of escalators. Clare says “I was like a machine in there”. Babe, you’re like a machine everywhere. You have the emotional range of a toaster. She adds “I have a very European style. I think I fit in. I’m with the paleskins here”. Oh, okay, Biggum Chief Brushes Hair. We’ll make a note of that in our next smoke signal workshop. Gerry then takes the girls ‘window-shopping’, which is another way of saying ‘we can’t afford a cab and we’re not allowed in any of the good shops, so we’re walking to Selfridges”.

· Once in Selfridges, Gerry drags Elle MacPherson out of a corner somewhere, causing the scrags to stare open-mouthed. There’s a chance this might be because she’s a famous supermodel and all that, but it’s much more likely to be because she’s wearing a fur-and-sequin jacket. Elle greets the girls and compares them to ‘the four musketeers”. Um… lady? There are a lot of ‘fours’ available to choose from. Beatles. Tops. Horsemen Of The Apocalypse. The Musketeers are for threes. That’s kind of how that works. Elle gives the girls some advice about modelling and health, which gives rise to this week’s multiple choice question. Yay, multiple choice question!

Q: If you wanted to sound like a bit of a space-cadet who had lost all contact with reality and now pretty much lived completely up your own sphincter, you would say:
a) That modelling is not about your face, it’s about honouring and nurturing your body;
b) That if you meditate, you will find your core light;
c) That you don’t know if you inspire young girls, but you do try to share your journey; or
d) All of the above, you sparkly, fur-wearing, meditating, sphincter-dwelling space-cadet, you.

Next, Elle chooses something she’s noticed in each of the girls that she thinks is beautiful that perhaps the girls themselves have never noticed. I am now accepting typed dissertations, page-numbered and footnoted, explaining why this unmitigated wank is on my telly right now. Apparently Clare has ‘beautiful long coltish legs’. Tahnee has ‘the contradiction between dark hair and blue eyes’. Right. Contradiction. I’d hand Elle a dictionary, but apparently she wouldn’t read it unless she’d written it herself, and no, I will never let that quote from the late eighties lie. Adele is asked if she’s ever noticed her hands before. No, Elle. Up until now, Adele has been typing essays with two bloody stumps, and tying her shoelaces with her nose. Cassi is told that her skin colour is beautiful, but that it will turn grey if she doesn’t stop smoking. Elle closes The Big Elle MacPherson Book Of Medikal Fakts with a satisfied smile and sends the girls to lunch.

· During lunch, a waitress gives the girls an envelope that has the words ‘Check Your Phone Before Opening’ written on it in texta. In an incredible coincidence, nobody has checked their phone before this point or even heard it ring, and when they do, there’s a message from Saint Sarah on it. In a completely unforeseen happenstance, Saint Sarah’s message tells the girls to open the envelope! Fortudental! Apparently the modules are ‘on show wherever they go’, and the envelope contains photographs of them arriving at the airport, which is this week’s challenge. Adele, who looks slightly less crappy than the others, wins the challenge, and picks Cassi to share her prize of a jaunt up a film-premiere red carpet. Clare’s green-eyed jealousy machine fires up, and she says “I think Adele had definitely worked out that there was a paparazzi there”. Where? Where was he? Was he standing behind the guy with the camera?

· We learn that The Fast And The Furious is Adele’s favourite movie series ever, and I need a new word for ‘incongruous’. While Adele and Cassi are at the film premiere, Clare and Tahnee do impersonations of how they imagine Adele and Cassi are behaving at the film premiere, and I need a new word for ‘filler’. Now, I know watching two separate pairs of girls walking along in two separate places should be interesting, but I’m momentarily distracted by Roget's Thesaurus.

· Dear stand-in, on-location London producers. Please call Australia and ask them for instructions on how to make Sarah Mails spontaneous and whimsical. Merely tacking one to the front door is unimaginative in the extreme. The message tells the modules that they’ll be finding their own way to some agency go-sees tomorrow at Storm and Premier via the Tube. I really, truly wish this was more interesting. It isn’t. It’s less. Still:
o When walking down the street, Clare tells the others to “move your skinny bitches’ arses”. You are so damn hardcore, Clare. ‘Crack whore’ and ‘bitches’ arses’, all in the one episode? You couldn’t sound tougher if you were intentionally trying to sound tough!
o I’m pretty sure Sarah at Storm used to be one of the barmaids in EastEnders. Unfortunately, she never says “Ethel, get your Willy off the bar”, so I can't really be certain.
o Cassi is referred to as a ‘no-brainer’. You knew I’d mention that, didn’t you. She’s also referred to as someone who can’t walk, who needs to get her teeth fixed, who stands out as soon as she enters a room and who will have a stellar modelling career. Ha! They said that about Kate Moss, and look what hap… oh. Oh, I see.
o I’m pretty sure that Tahnee’s boobs increase by 15% from one episode to the next. Anthony at Premier mentions that she’ll have a bit of a limited client base because of her curves. He means ‘tits’.

· The following day, Gerry DeDouche is waiting for the girls in their hotel room, wearing a furry vest. I challenge you to imagine something creepier that doesn’t involve actual crime. Waiting with him is photographer Robert Astley Sparke, who makes up for his toffy name by slinging a tea-towel around his neck and being peculiar. For today’s shoot, the girls will be trying to look sexy in hot frocks whilst draping themselves on and around London clichés. In between shots, Gerry DeDouche will be trying to get each module to bitch about another module, and failing huge. He makes me want to summarise:
o Tahnee is sexy/secretarial in a patchwork-printed frock, and she leans on a telescope with Big Ben and the Thames behind her. Gerry tells her she owns London, and Tahnee assumes that it must be because of the four hotels she put on Mayfair.
o Adele, in an oversized spangly t-shirt that somehow costs more than my house, poses in a phone box, because of course to make a dress look classy one must pose in front of fifteen tiny advertisements for prostitutes. She works through a thorough treatise on advanced door mechanics, explaining that the door wants to close, and that she has to hold it open. Like my eyelids, for example.
o Cassi hangs off the back of a big red bus, and when Gerry asks “whose bus is this?”, she replies “MY BUS!”, adding under her breath “My bus. I stole it, and if any of youse arseholes have a problem with that, you can talk to my left fist”. Gerry describes her face by explaining that “those things that are half an inch wrong make it all right”. I suspect he might sometimes try to use this excuse when he's naked as well, but withoGAACCHK . Sorry. Just threw up in my mouth a little bit. Anyway, Cassi kicks some arse and then stops.
o Clare, in an admittedly hot black suit and awesome large wombat-dropping necklace, gets to pose in front of well-known London hotspot A HOUSE. She leers and scowls and keeps her mouth permanently open, and says to camera that “I wanna have a come-fuck-me look”, and then shGLAAAARK. Sorry. Sorry.

· On the way home from the photo shoot, the cab driver turns around and says “By der way, gewls – I got somedin faw ya”, and hands over a Sarah-Mail. Handed over by a Cockney cab driver. What’s rhyming slang for ‘predictable and lame’? It’s something to do with Bristol, isn’t it? Innit. Anyway, he makes up for it by being a magical cabbie who can transport four skinny scrags from London back to Sydney in under a second. I want to know where this geezer was on Friday night, when I needed him.

· The newly-Anglicised scrags enter the Elimination Hangar, where they are greeted by Saint Sarah, who only just makes it in time after spending the morning proof-reading pamphlets for the Elle MacPherson Literacy Drive. She lists the prizes, which I think this year include a packet of instant porridge and a series of Little Golden Books, and then introduces the judges – Charlotte Dawson (dressed today as an air hostess on an airline that serves chicken, fish, and happy endings), Shiny Alex Perry (whose shirt and eyes have shrunk in the wash), Series 3 winner Alice Burdeu (who looks as if her puppy has just been run over) and George Pease (who is experimenting today with rectangular hair). Photographs are viewed and discussed, and everybody seems to tacitly agree that this week’s photographer is eighteen distinctly different varieties of shit. Seriously – when the girls were being photographed, they looked glamorous, sexy, and alive. The resulting photographs look like they’ve been taken from a moving car with a broken headlight. Comments:
o Charlotte summarises Clare’s shot with “It’s not one of your best. You’re still a beautiful girl, I mean that’s not going to change unless you run into the back of a bus”. Luckily for Clare, Cassi had the ‘running into the back of a bus’ brief for this shoot. Still, I’d like to see Clare try it, just for comparison’s sake. Quite hard. At speed. On ice skates.
o Cassi’s shot is declared ‘dull’, and Shiny Alex comments that she looks like she’s ‘waiting for the ticket’. Because it’s a bus, see. And they sell tickets. It’s contextual. George Pease says “It’s one of the worst shots I’ve seen of you this season. In the face”. No, George. It’s pronounced “In your FACE!”.
o Alice tells Tahnee her photo is “really pretty” and “really cute”. Thanks for coming, Alice. No, really.
o During deliberation, Charlotte praises Clare, causing Saint Sarah to ask “so she’s not spooking you any more?”. Charlotte responds with “She is spooking the shit out of me”. Good. I’m glad I’m not the only one. Right, me and 87% of viewers?

· The modules file back in, and Saint Sarah rattles off names until only Two-Short-Planks-Tahnee and Wake-Me-When-It’s-Over-Adele are left. Tahnee is told that she’s not versatile enough, and Adele learns that she doesn’t have much range. These are obviously two completely different things. Four departure lounges pass, and Adele is sent packing. Bye, Adele! Mind you don’t do anything intereszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Next week, the scrags walk the runway for Fashion Week, take breathtakingly gorgeous shots in the rain, and find out who’s in the bottom two. Perambulate. Precipitate. Penultimate.

If you love me at all (or hate me, or are indifferent, or only arrived here after Googling “Charlotte Dawson’s boobs” like so many of you do), click on through to the Impulse facebook page and make a contribution. Leave a comment, start a discussion, enter a competition and the like. You’ll miss it when I stop nagging you about it. Don’t lie.

If you love Petstarr at all (which you do, because she’s awesome), click on through to Bland Canyon. Bring undies.