Australia's Next Top Westie Scrag Series Seven #1

You know those days when you wake up with your hair already looking good, you find twenty dollars in your jacket pocket, you’ve lost four kilos overnight and you tongue-pash Jason Statham while James Franco waits his turn?


Well the first episode of ANTM is more awesome than that. Except for the Statham/Franco bit, because have you seen them? My nipples pick up SBS just thinking about them.


I’m sure I’ll get all organised and crap as the series struts onward, but for now I’m SOIR FULL OF EMOYTION that I’m just going all stream-of-consciousness on your sweet arses.


Here, in brain-vomit format, are my thoughts on this, the ‘I Got Ninety-Nine Bitches And A Problem With None’ episode of Australia’s Next Top Model. Except I do have a problem with a couple of them. I know. Unusual.

******

To start things off, the modular hopefuls stroll into a barn, wondering what they’re in for, how many times they’ll say “Oh my god”, and what they could possibly all have in common.


NICE BUNS.

 A shadowy figure appears, seemingly straight from a fundraiser for the Society For Shut Up About Last Year’s Finale Already, and the girls clap and say ‘Woo’, because OH MY GOD IT’S SAINT SARAH!

Saint Sarah announces that the next three days will be a ‘boot camp’ that will whittle the modules down to just thirty, which causes Simone to be the first girl to be nicknamed by me this season when she says


“I thought it was literally gonna be boot camp, like fitness and stuff”.


Nice one, Simone. Your new name is ‘Doik’. Seriously, a vacuum would be lonely in her skull.



Doik does this when she tilts her head so her brain doesn't drip out.

The first challenge for the girls is remembering how to spell their names, followed closely by a meet and greet with the judges for a bit of a question and answer sesh. It’s revealed that some of the girls are merely piles of chicken bones lightly dusted with veins and skin, some of them can belly dance, some of them are beatboxers, some of them are bat-shit crazy, some of them walk like they’re holding a buttered guinea pig between their thighs, and some of them were born under a tree. Honestly, can’t we just go one freakin’ series without a contestant who was born under a tree? God.

We also meet Elizabeth, my tip for a winner (apologies, Elizabeth, but that probably means you’ll be out by lunchtime tomorrow), who forgets Saint Sarah’s name, and has trouble with the sentence “I’m interested in mental health”. I can’t imagine why.




I can totes see my mental if I go like this.

 Now, you know we have to talk about Cassie, right? My prediction for her is that every single person on every single facebook page and forum is going to claim that Cassie is just there for entertainment value, and is not a model, blah di-blah. And to those people, I say THANK CHRIST FOR THAT. I mean come ON. If words were chewing gum jeans and menthol cigarettes, they would look like this:


“I love fashion with a passion. That rhymes!”

“I’m an indiji-australian. Ah – I’m an indigenous person. Like, I’m aboriginal”

“Other than modelling I’d like to work in retail doing like somefing like Supre or Gucci or that”

and
“I’m a bit of a fashionista but I just like to be comfy sometimes too. I still like me joggers and stuff”.


If you say those four sentences five times in a row, a bluebird tattoo automatically appears on your left boob. Try it.


Charlotte Dawson and Shiny Alex Perry hurl golden nuggets from their insult-a-pault without even raising an eyebrow, because that’s a joke about Botox.


Amelia, who looks a little bit like a single alfalfa sprout, claims that while everyone else was reading Girlfriend magazine in year seven, she was reading Vogue. Amelia, everyone in year seven hated you. And apparently stole your lunch.


Caroline claims that she is not up herself. Caroline lies.


Hey, let me ask you something. Does this look familiar to you?

Yes? You remember that footage of Rosie crying with uncertainty? THAT’S BECAUSE YOU’VE SEEN IT FIVE TIMES. Five. I counted. What’s that? Oh... well, because I wanted to... I mean I was paying atten - SHUT UP, YOU ARE.


Eventually, fifty girls are given the arse, which is ironic due to that none-of-them-have-arses thing. They seemingly wander, bikini-clad, out of the barn into the night to hail a cab to Soul Crushed Street or Broken Dreams Avenue, and I think I totally just wrote a blues hit.


Morning image montage follows night-time image montage, and the girls are summoned back to the barn by Jez ‘Chest’ Smith at oh-my-fucking-god o’clock for day two of boot camp.


They’re told that they have five minutes in front of one of five different photographers at one of five different plain white sites, and Sesame Street was also brought to you by the letter four.


The twist? They have to chisel all their make-up off and go au naturale, which Doik assumes means ‘naked’. For Madeline, it practically is naked, as she undergoes a hearty face-spray by Dawson and chips the rest off with a broken plate.

MUCH BETTER.

Amazonian Rachel has just one dimple that goes right through her face, and is only capable of saying one thing: ‘Thank you’. No, really – thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thank you. Ta.


Okay, so she's not saying it here, but you KNOW she's thinking it.


 Saint Sarah says that Annaliese has ‘quite prominent teeth’, which is like saying that Piet Mondrian ‘kinda liked rectangles a little bit’ or, for the lowbrow amongst you, like saying ‘there’s a small chance that Ke$ha has chlamydia’. While I try to think of a nickname for Annaliese, let’s just ponder a little comparison, shall we?



Just saying.


 Izzy of the pink hair does a spot of screaming to get into the phoytoy-shoot zone, while the rest of us immediately think of Aphex Twin’s Come To Daddy film clip, because tell me I’m wrong.

Another twenty girls are bumped off, which is ironic due to that none-of-them-have-bumps thing.

Everyone who gets through looks pretty happy, except for one. Teary Tayah.




This is Tayah when she finds out she's in the top fifty.



This is Tayah when she finds out she's in the top thirty.



And this is Tayah when she finds out she's won a million dollars and the cheque is made out of chocolate and kittens.

 Every model is given a pair of heels and told to practice walking, because lord knows a young girl needs a chance to put one foot in front of the other and then repeat the process heaps.


Caroline runs modelling and walking classes in the hotel hallway. There’s a reasonably excellent chance that Caroline is an arsehole.


Day three of boot camp brings the news that the scrags will be clomping down the runway in Alex Perry frocks, that people who can’t walk look like camels, roadkill or things laying eggs, and that the girls will be styled and assisted by Sylvester Stallone’s ex-wife Brigitte Neilsen.

Tell me you see it. You see it, don't you.

The modules get into their mind-blowingly gorgeous frocks, hair and make-up, and I remind readers that the only reason I sit here writing this bollocks is to score myself a free frock. This is gonna be my year, I can feel it. THIS IS MY YEAR, MR PERRY.


The girls all walk with varying degrees of success, ponytail-swings and pigeon toes, but I’m distracted by the bloody rubbish they let into fashion shows these days.

Finally, after what, eighteen hours of television, we find out who the top twenty are, as each module is told excruciatingly slowly in their best frocks whether or not they’ve made the cut. Elizabeth suffers from a lack of confidence. Caroline does not. Rachel says thank you. Tayah looks like she’s going to cry. Amelia is almost toppled by a gentle breeze. Izzy is told that she embodies ‘everything that is unique about a model’, which I assume includes having pink hair and a wipe-clean dress.



Then, with the traditionally scant budget and crappy production values we’re so used to on this show, the girls are told they’re all going to Paris.


RECORD SCRATCH SCOOBY-DOO NOISE WHAT?


Oh.


My.


Whatever the French word for ‘God’ is.


Frigging PARIS. That’s a whole other country. They have different words for stuff and everything. I know, because I read a jar of mustard once.

******

Now, before I go and watch this episode eight more times and then have a bath in it, I’ll let you know the new thing I’m doing this year.


Each week I’ll be summarising the episode by writing a verse of a country ditty, so that by the time the finale comes around I’ll have a whole song. Please tell everyone you know who plays banjo, because I may need them.


Anyway:


If yooou’re


Standing in a barn and St Sarah has a yarn then there’s only one thing for it:


Clap and woo clap and woo clap and woo clap and woo if she thinks you’re fat, ignore it.


If you’re camera shy and you don’t know why then you know what you’ll be saying;


Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god it’s exactly like you’re praying.


Put your togs straight on, get your make up off, let me help you with this chisel;


We’ll eliminate the batch that aren’t up to scratch and you know that that’s for shizzle.


Now put on this frock – to the runway! Rock, wobble, step-ball-change and prance;


If you’re the chosen scrags, then pack up your bags, ‘cause you’re going to fucking France.

The Inside Seam, And How I Sometimes Forget To Be Up Myself.

I can't believe I haven't properly plugged this here yet, what with my penchant for self-promotion tantamount to listening to an opera singer warming up (me me me me me), but check it out!

While we're waiting for Australia's Next Top Westie Scrag to grace our hungry screens, I've been scribbling and voicing episode recap clip show thingies for Project Runway.

Like, they ASKED me to. Because they WANTED me to. So if you'll excuse me, I have to call a couple of high school teachers who told me I'd never get anywhere by being a sarcastic bitch.

It's the best fun a girl could have with her clothes on without martinis or cheese! I write it and put the time codes and stuff on a piece of paper, record a voice-over, and then hand it all to a clever bloke who actually knows what every single button on his computer keyboard does. Even that squiggle thing. I know. It's amazing.

Right. I think I've made up for forgetting to blow my own trumpet now. As you were.

New episodes up every week. Yay.

Australia's Next Top Westie Scrag Series Seven - Fly The Scraggy Skies

I can hear a distant sound. It’s like... like two hundred feet tapping, with undertones of swishing polyester and the tortured raising of eyebrows.

That, coupled with the unmistakable odour of hot smoking stupid (the good kind), can only mean one thing.


Series 7 of Australia’s Next Top Model is nigh.


Either that or I’m having a stroke. But that’s the smell of toast, isn’t it? No, it’s probably the model thing. Pretty sure.

It’s a time when pure poetry (like of course “Don’t stop, too hot”) can be found in the opening credits, and pure self-obsessed, bony joy can be found thereafter.


Usually at this time, I log on to the ol’ ANTM website and pass knee-jerky judgement on the modelling hopefuls based on nothing bar a photograph and a sparsely punctuated bio.


But this year the geniuses at Model HQ (I’m sure that’s what they call it when they’re telling the helicopters where to land) are starting with ONE. HUNDRED. MODULES.


That is a lot of menthol cigarettes.


Instead, I’ve been perusing the plethora of profiles and have categorised the girls into different groups. I know. Scientific. It’s like the goddamn Ponds Institute all up in here.

 Girls Who Will Win

Traditionally, any girl I think has winning potential pretty much leaves in the first three minutes. I have better luck predicting the longevity of soap bubbles.




Yolanda. Exotic and that.



Elizabeth - my big tip to win, so she'll be gone before the opening credits roll.



Amelia has no boobs and can tell time. That's pretty much a supermodel.

 

Girls Who Need Some Sleep

I’m not saying these girls are actual zombies. I’m just saying that they look like they’ve been up all night. And might really want some brains.

Rosie - Either needs sleep or just woke up.

Taylah wants your braaaiiiiinnns. And also your sandwich.

Madeline's pretty. PRETTY HUNGRY FOR BRAINS.

 



Girls Who Lean Awkwardly

There’s your classic Awkward Lean, favoured by girls who take their facebook profile pictures and manicures very seriously, and then there’s this kind of thing. This kind of I-have-a-vertebra-missing, look-I-can-tie-my-right-shoelace-from-here, anybody-want-a-spare-kidney lean.

Alissandra is doing the world's most lack-lustre Hokey Pokey.



Bianca's hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of her other two sides.



Jessica would like to have a word with you about your posture.

Girls Who Have Pink Hair.

Huh. Just one this year.

Isabelle. Had a little trouble in tinting class.

Girls Whose Kittens Just Died.

Charlotte is sad, but not so sad that she won't wear her kitten-grave-digging boots.

Cheer up, loves.

Madeline isn't so much sad that her kitten died as terrified it's about to.

Don't worry, Tayah. Sooty's in a much better place now.

Girls Who Smelt It And/Or Dealt It.
You say ‘posing’. I say ‘smelt a fart’.


Ashley is just standing very, very still until the smell goes away.



Amy knows someone farted. Amy knows it was you.



Damn, Jessica. It smells like a leopard died in here.

 I could not be more excited if somebody told me James Franco was waiting in my room dressed in a bacon onesie. It starts on August 8th. Anything between now and then is just white noise, except for my recap clip show thing for Project Runway. I KNOW, RIGHT?

Every Day For A Year #19 or: A-Yibbida-Yibbida

A little over a year ago at the pub, my mate Frosty told me that he was going to take a photo every day for a year, to hone his mad rectangular picture-making skillz.



I asked him if I could post the photos in this neck of the woods, thinking it would be an interesting project to invite myself to be involved in.


WHAT.


IN THE NAME OF STINKY BLUE CHEESE.


WAS I THINKING.


I was thinking it would be awesome and, for me at least (because I love you all, but seriously, find your own fun), I was right.


Usually over the space of twelve months, you just learn a random melange of facts about your friends. For example, over the same period, I discovered that Frosty accrues massive dental bills, likes hats with knitted beards attached, looks decent in a suit, and can apparently fart up a festival tent like a champion.


Things I wasn’t expecting to learn about him though, but have done so through the regularly-deposited images in my inbox, are things like the fact that Frosty can make a busy city street seem suddenly quiet and gently autumnal. That he has a sensitivity for texture that most of us don’t. That he can twist your visual expectations in surprising ways just by tilting his camera a little to the left. And that he barely gives away a single emotion or secret in person, but can gush like a hormonal schoolgirl via shapes, angles and light.


I’ve also learned that if you compliment him too much, his ego expands faster than a Wettex in a swimming pool, so I should probably just shut up and get on with it.


Frosty, thanks for sending me all these pictures. They take forever to upload, you bastard. And worth every second.


In closing: That last one’s a pearler, my friend. Gluckwunsche!