willc.me

Imagine the scene. It’s the Monaco Grand Prix. You have all the money you could ever need and you’ve decided that you’re going to sail to the race in your yacht/house. You arrive in the harbor only to find that firstly, your boat doesn’t fit and secondly, that it looks like you’ve bought a finely sculpted office block.

What you’re looking at is the latest super yacht, from Monaco based, awkwardly named, Wally (Now at least we know the answer to where’s Wally. Monaco. Applause.) and Hermes, the fashion house. So what you have is a ridiculously stylised live aboard yacht that let’s face it, only Arabs and Russians can afford or want. Which is perfect because it’ll match their wardrobe.

When you think of luxury liners, you think of the Titanic, they encapsulate the very essence of the sea. Opulence and beauty. This is the boat that Kevin McCloud from Grand Designs has wet dreams about. It’s all glass and fiber glass. The WHY no longer looks like a boat but one chopped in half in some horrific accident.

The idea behind the boat is that it’s something that you could live aboard all year round. There’s the master bedroom floor which has suites and offices and bathrooms and walk in wardrobes. And there are the 5 other suites. 2 senior, that offer little living rooms and 3 junior that, well, er, don’t. That’d make for an interesting if difficult choice when you were giving out the bedrooms.

The boat also has a list of ridiculous features that, let’s face it, if you’re any self-respecting Arab prince or Russian Oligarch, you would consider essential. For example, inside the main atrium, there’s a tree. The name comes in handy here when we ask WHY? Why on earth would you have a tree in a boat. Because you can I guess. There’s also all your basic amenities, a cinema, spa, music room, “beach”, swimming pool and library.

The WHY is also cashing in on the latest trend and that is the whole environment thing. This is like the worlds largest Toyota Prius. It’s covered by a whopping 900 square meters of solar panels to power up all your televisions and computers.  There are recycling facilities on board for organic and inorganic waste. And I don’t think it’ll be one of those green boxes the council give you. They’re planning to put a computer powered sail on the yacht too, which will provide at least 30% of the power. See. A floating Prius.

As yet, they haven’t released a price tag. It was only unveiled on the 22nd so it’s all very new. It’s currently being tested in a test tank in Gothenburg, Sweden. According to one site, in full swell, the bow moves a little but the stern stays still. In a test tank. Still, I wouldn’t want a million foot wave hitting the back of the boat.

So if you’re an Arab sheik or Russian oligarch and you fancy a boat that’ll match your belt and polo shirt then the number is +377 93100093. And for the rest of us, there’s always Google image search.

So the other day I did a shoot for the site. It’s going to be wholly changed and look sparkly and new. Without being too sparkly for fear it’ll look girly. Shoots are an odd experience and one that many people never really experience. They sound glamerous and sexy but on the whole they aren’t really that. Why?

What always surprises me is how many people attend a photo shoot. You’d think there would just be the model or subject and the photographer. But no, there’s clothing stylists and make up artists and hair stylists, a huge array of people. All there to make sure the model, or sometimes more importantly, the product look good.

Arriving at the call time can sometimes be a bit of a bitch. If it’s early that is. I was planning not to go out the night before but one thing led to another and I drunkenly got home at 4 to have to wake up at 8. Contrary to what people think, it’s difficult to look bad when you have a professional crew around you. Make-up, pretty clothes and lighting all help to make even the most repulsive people look interesting at the very least. Let alone the hungover ones.

The best thing about the shoot is the beginning. Everyone meets and you start to gel. Whether positively or negatively can really effect the shoot. At the beginning it’s exciting, you’re working on a new concept with new people. There are outfits to try on and you get to play up to the camera.

But then the day starts to drag on a bit. Your stomach starts rumbling and you’re hungry though very aware of the fact that a foot long from Subway might make you look fat. Opps. No wonder models are so skinny. And I wasn’t even topless, much. Taking Polaroids to test the lighting is great at first, each one a little bundle of joy, a surprise to see how the look works. But as the day goes on, it’s just another test. Another point where you’re sitting around waiting. Waiting to see what they look like so you can hold the same pose and do it all over again on film.

And staying still. Staying still is another challenge. Having the same amount of energy as the Sun means staying still at the best of times is difficult, but with people watching. Nigh on impossible. Hopefully I stayed still enough, I want the pictures to be great.

Yesterday I was on my way to a shoot and stopped off to buy some things from Topshop. I arrived at 11.15 and was more than a bit annoyed to find that they didn’t open till 11.30. The doors opened and the considerable crowd moved in. I raced to get what I needed and headed for the till. But there was a problem. They couldn’t serve me till 12.

I think I answered with ” Fucking Christians”. For then I remembered the Sunday Trading Act of 1994. Well I just thought Sunday hours, not the act thing. Maybe the most annoying thing that brings UK Christians closest to their fundamental cousins in the US.  You know why those big supermarket stores are open 24/7 apart from till midnight on Saturday and from 11-5 on Sunday. Christians.

Before 1994, Sunday was strictly observed as the day of rest. Shops that opened on this day were fined. However, the fines were less than the profits they made so they opened anyway. But then the Sunday Trading Act of 1994 came in. It said small shops could open all day and large shops of 3000 square feet or more could open 6 continuous hours between 10 and 6.  So 15 years ago we took one more step towards leaving the shroud of darkness caused by organised religion.

But since then not much has happened. In 2006 it seemed that the government might allow shops to do what they want. By allowing large shops to trade it would generate an extra £1.4bn for the UK economy. Something that could be useful seeing how we’re going to be in debt forever.

So who would oppose this? Who else but Unions (love them) and Christians (them too). The General Secretary of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, (comrade) John Hannett said that he didn’t want Sunday trading as his 320,000 members “will be able to enjoy quality time with their loved ones on Sundays.” Do you think he’s ever been to a shop on Sunday? They’re fully manned by teenagers who hate their families. Poor deluded fool. They just want a lie in when they wake up with a hangover.

And the Christians? Well it’s estimated that there are 6,000,000 practicing Christians in the UK. That’s people who go to church and pray as opposed to saying they’re Christians so if there is a hell they don’t have to go to it. In the 2001 census, there were 8,596,488 who put “No Religion”. These are people who don’t care for basing their existence upon fables and who want to be able to shop when they want. That number doesn’t even include religions that don’t count Sunday as a holy day.

So what we’re saying is that a group of 6,320,000 Luddites is stopping the rest of us being able to shop when we like and from the economy receiving a well needed boost. That’s just 9.6% of the population. And what did the government have to say in 2006: “The Department of Trade and Industry reached its decision after consulting a wide range of interested parties including consumers, businesses and religious groups.” Lies. Which consumer doesn’t want to consume more, which business doesn’t want to sell more?

The problem is that the minority in this case are more vocal as they are all old, fearing death and want to be good Christians so they go to “Heaven”. And creepy Union people. The non Christians are an unwieldy rabble who spend too much time in shops to know about this cause. I say, LET US SHOP!

As talked about yesterday, it is widely assumed that boys don’t grow up. By the same assumption we must take it that girls do “grow up”. But do they actually? In what ways is it different that girls will grow into an adult of responsibility whereas boys will sit there playing with toys?

Well if you look a little deeper, then it could be said that none of us grow up. The things that interest us when we’re young interest us when we “grow up”. To be wildly stereotypical, little girls like dressing up and playing with make up. Sounds like a Friday or Saturday night on the town if you ask me. Girls never grow out of that urge to look pretty. Maybe as a child they mimic it from their mothers but when the boys are playing soldiers, the girls are playing make up.

Little girls also dream of weddings. Maybe not now. Now-a-days they probably dream of growing up to be with their lesbian partners, smoking 80 a day while waiting for the next benefit cheque. But traditionally girls want to get married and settled down. This is reflected in TV marketed to women. Just look at Sex In The City to see how girls are eternally obsessed with marriage, the organisation and arranging of it.

However, where men and women differ the greatest is their role in bringing up children. Women are thought to have to mature and be better adapted to cope with responsibility as throughout time they are the ones raising the young. Whereas for men, who were out winning bread or hunting animals, as long as you have the food it doesn’t make how responsible or serious a manner you do it in.

As a child we see grown ups as mature but maybe that never comes. Maybe they aren’t mature. We only used to lived to the age of 20 up to a few hundred years ago. Perhaps we’re all just scared kids trying to battle through, whether that be man or woman.

It is often said that boys never grow up. That we live in an infantile world whereby, responsibility and maturity constantly elude us. Most of all it is said by women, maybe never in history has it been acknowledged by man. But why is it the case that we have the inability to mature when women do?

When we talk of boys never growing up, it’s often bunched with those other cliches of “boys and their toys” and “the bigger the boy the bigger the toy”. It is true that men have often been wholely obsessed with toys. Whether it be those of the child’s nature of those of a bigger nature. Scientists, engineers and warmongers alike all share a passion for toys whether it be a reactor, a plane or a tank.

In this day and age grown men no longer have to find solace in serious toys. It’s become far easier. There are other people that make the toys leaving the modern man free to play with them. Reading the paper the other day I saw an article about luxury “man beds” which have a plasma TV installed in the end. They alone were defying the downward economic trend and selling out. Because boys like their toys.

If we scratch the surface however, it goes deeper and further than simply men enjoying toys. It’s the sheer ingenuity of the human species that allow us to develop these toys, things that fascinate and amaze us as a species and things that allow us to not only dominate our food chain but make us almost God-like.

The fact that man never has to grow up and can stay in their playroom/workshop is namely down to one thing. We don’t have to give birth and feel the strong bond between mother and child. We are lone wolves, prowling the night. We never bring a new life into the world and are only a small, if necessary, part of the process. In the past we could act immaturely as we didn’t have to feed the baby with milk and tend to it’s needs. There is a lack of necessary responsibilty.

However, throughout the ages, this lack of responsibility has been used by man to the detriment of women. Women say they are cleverer than men and that they are more mature. Possibly the greatest deception of all time is the unrecognised fact that men know they’re immature and play upon it for our betterment and woman’s loss. By admonishing responsibility it means that man is looked after.

Read tomorrow for “Girls Never Grow Up”.