Calendar Girl March:Selita Ebanks



Well, in our usual tardy way we will celebrate Miss March on the last day of the month. Miss Ebanks' surname may well sound like she is an online banking site or, possibly, a carpet sweeper but, in fact, she is a 26 year old model from that good old British dependency and tax haven the Cayman Islands.






What a very fine picture this is!




There is lots of rags to riches nonsense about her on the internet and we are sure she is a very intelligent woman with a great personality but who cares? We just think she is a gorgeous, toffee coloured piece of tail. World class.



All sorts of thoughts spring to mind regarding this picture with Marissa Miller.


Oh my goodness it's all too much! The Victoria's Secret (Selita fourth from left) girls show that really gorgeous women do not need slinky lingerie.

Civilisation vs Anarchy


So, tomorrow thousands of terrorists, communists, anarchists, enviromentalists, criminals, foreigners and the unemployed, will descend on the City under the guise of peaceful protest but, in reality, intent on destruction, robbery and violence. Egged on by the press (Agent DVD reports one shop in the Royal Exchange was boarding up its windows to the delight of the pinko TV news crew) there will be, no doubt, hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage caused by life's losers.


There is one solution to this influx of criminals: the good old seventeenth century pike block. The Honourable Artillery Company already have pikemen who are used for ceremonial occasions. Let's stick 500 of them at Bank and deal with these enemies of Britain at the point of 16 foot pikes. A few musketmen on the roof of the Royal Exchange wouldn't go amiss either. Agent Triple P is proud to see that Agent DVD will be defying the anarchist mob to go to work in the City tomorrow. Stupid anarchists (how do they organise anything?) will not be able to tell the difference between banks and insurers but they aren't really interested in protest are they?


A pox upon them all!

Too much make-up...


"To be an actor see Mr Factor, He'll make your kisser look good" -Hooray for Hollywood (Whiting/Mercer) from Hollywood Hotel (1937)


Agent Triple P is as susceptible to the next man to the effect created by a clever make-up artist in the pages of Playboy or Vogue and, indeed, the ability of these people to make the mundane look exceptional is truly awe inspriring; unfortunately to the extent that some become so enamoured of the artifice that they lose hold on the reality of real women. We prefer our ladies defiantly un-made up; not just for the look but also the unpleasant tactile reality of an over-done maquillage.


Two incidents have sparked this reflection.


Yesterday we were out and about and saw several young ladies in full warpaint at around 4.30pm. These particular specimens were probably not over the age of fifteen (possibly younger) but were encrusted with the full Hollywood look. Frankly it looked ridiculous at that time of day; they had seriously mistaken fashion magazine photgraphic make-up for what is acceptable on the street. As a result they looked like some of the more dubious young ladies Triple P has encountered after midnight at Hollywood and Vine.


Secondly, today saw the welcome return of young "Ludivine" on the morning train. She is a fresh faced girl but with a hint of skin problems on her cheeks, no doubt exasipated by the hideous amount of powder she was coating herself with. She pulled out her make-up bag which was stuffed with all sorts of hideously unhealthy looking bottles and pots. Leave it alone! Let the sun get to your face for a couple of weeks and you will look lovely.
Girls. Honestly!


Spring has sprung...


Well, we have now had three sunny days in a row and Agent Triple P has been enjoying the scenery along Oxford Street.


We very much approve of the new season's legwear for women: eighteenth century style above the knee stockings with little ties at the back worn with miniskirts.


Splendid!

Your shoes are untied..


Agent Triple P has never really got the hang of shoelaces. He finds that they come undone all the time. Usually, however, there are several firmly tied sub-knots and so if the "cosmetic" knot comes undone there is no problem. He does not need people he knows, or even worse, people he doesn't know telling him his laces are undone. He knows when his laces are undone, his periferal vision is quite capable of showing him this.


Triple P was in Leadenhall Market last week happily listening to some Khachaturian on his iPod when he became aware of some fellow, not just telling him once, but pursuing him up the street to tell him again about his laces. Eventually he had to remove his earphones and look at the beardy-weirdy man with his grumpiest glare.


"Your shoes are undone!" says the beardy weirdy. How empty and meaningless must his life be if he has the time to pursue peole down the street telling them this! Triple P knows when his shoes are undone it is just that he has chosen not to do them up again at that particular moment.


"Would you like to do them up again for me, then?" asks Triple P. Beardy wierdy retreats muttering.


When the same thing happened in the St Regis last week M's mother, J, was quite happy to tie them up again (although I suspect it was mainly so she could show off her legs as her already short skirt rode up even higher). Although we could have done without the "looks like they were tied by a baboon in the dark" comment.


Don't point out a problem unless you are prepared to be part of the solution!

Death in the Afternoon...or Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder

Here madness lies...

Agent Triple P had not expected to be in Washington DC but he had been invited to a dinner with "top people" to discuss a subject on which he was something of an expert. As a result he was just touching down at Dulles airport when a week previously he had no idea that he would be here.

His flight had been more than comfortable as he had been upgraded to first class. There had been some problem with a double booking so he was moved after hae had got on to the plane. This put him in a surprisingly good mood for someone making a seven hour flight. Ten minutes from landing he was just reflecting on how smooth and enjoyable the flight had been when the plane started to bump and make those sudden drops that he really couldn't bear.

Anyway he landed shaken but not stirred and discovered another advantage of first class; you got off the plane first which is a distinct advantage when arriving at US immigration. Unfortunately the plane had arrived at about the same time as not one but two aircraft from Saudi Arabia. One of Triple P's key travel rules was never to stand in an immigration line behind Arabs; particularly when arriving in the US. However he had been allocated his booth by the rather perky arrival line girl and had then waited fifteen minutes whilst the Arab couple in front were soundly interrogated. A veiled Arab lady is always a tantalising prospect but of course this lady had to remove her veil to be photographed. This she did to reveal a heart-stopping beauty that made Triple P's annoyance at having to wait melt away completely. Eventually perky queue girl took pity on him and took him and steered him to the front of another queue.

The slight delay meant that his case had already been unloaded from the carousel and so he quickly passed through customs into the arrival hall where he looked out for his particular friend M who had said she would meet him. Much to his surprise the lady who approached him was not M but her mother, a gorgeous woman only slightly older than Triple P himself, but who looked ten years younger.

Triple P had met M's mother, J, in the bar at the Hay-Adams hotel the previous July. He had been waiting for M and had got chatting to this attractive lady over a Martini or two whilst waiting for M. He knew he was supposed to meet M's mother, a lobbyist that evening but had imagined a pencil thin wizened woman with short-cropped grey hair and a severe trouser suit not the curvy woman in a black leather miniskirt, seamed stockings and a turquoise shot silk jacket. In fact he had just started to think that she might be a professional lady. When M eventually arrived she was pleased that Triple P had got to know her mother. Her mother had given Triple P a conspiratorial and rather filfthy wink.

M's mother, J, explained that M had been delayed at work and so she had volunteered to pick him up. They made good time and arrived at his hotel, the St Regis, in no time. Rather surprisingly she parked her car and followed him into the hotel rather than just dropping him off. Triple P checked in but was told that his suite wasn't ready. J appeared from parking her car and suggested they have a drink in the bar instead. It was only 3.30pm but, as J pointed out it was half past seven in London. As a result of this conversation she suggested that they both have a Death in the Afternoon.

This particular cocktail had been invented by Ernest Hemingway and had been contributed by him to a 1935 celebrities cocktail book called So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon edited by journalist and author Sterling North. Hemingway wrote: "This was arrived at by the author and three officers of the H.M.S. Danae after having spent seven hours overboard trying to get Capt. Bra Saunders' fishing boat off a bank where she had gone with us in a N.W. gale." His directions were to “Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.” In this cocktail the ice-cold Champagne acts like water when preparing absinthe normally so that the non-soluable components (mainly those from anise, fennel, and star anise) come out of solution provide the cloudy opalescence called the louche ("opaque" or "shady"). The addition of water, or in this case Champagne, is important because it causes the herbs to blossom and brings the flavours.


The only thing we would disagree about is the instruction to "drink three to five" of these. After only two Triple P and J were already getting inappropriately friendly. Nevertheless Triple P is already thinking of trying a variant with added vodka.



Piják absintu by Viktor Oliva (1861-1928)


All in all an afternoon drinking these made us appreciate the picture The absinthe drinker by the Czech painter Viktor Oliva which Triple P has seen on the wall of the Cafe Slavia in Prague.

Owl Creek Chardonel



Agent Triple P has never had a wine from Illinois before so when he saw one on the list at his hotel bar in Washington he had to try it.


Owl creek is in the Shawnee Hill's region of southern Illinois which only got it's American Viticultural Area designation in 2006. Indeed much of the work to achieve this was due to the work of Dr Ted Wichmann who founded Owl Creek Vineyard in 1995. There are now 18 wineries and 55 vineyards in the area.


The wine, while being oaked, is not offensively so and whilst being quite perfumed in a peachy way has an unusual lime citrus finish which means it doesn't have that strong Californian type oily quality which puts us off much West Coast chardonnay. A very pleasant lunchtime wine and our companion and I enjoyed it with a lobster salad.



The Chardonel is a late ripening hybrid grape created by the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station. One of its key characteristics is that it is very hardy in colder climates.

Carry on Up Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro. It's big.



Agent Triple P has always enjoyed reading the adventures of the great nineteenth century explorers as they trekked into the Dark Continent in the nineteenth century to "discover" things which the locals had always known about anyway. So he is following with some interest the exploits of some latter day inheritors of the spirit of Burton, Speke, Stanley, Baker and Livingstone.

Van Outen

For now we have Van Outen, Cotton, Cole, Walsh and Dixon. Yes, some of Triple P's very favourite female celebrities are climbing Kenya's Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for Comic Relief. Now Triple P is not exactly an intrepid explorer unlike, for example, Agent DVD who has just returned from a mountain biking trip to Southern India. DVD has camped out in many of the wild parts of the world whereas Triple P gets very nervous if he is more than twenty miles from a five star hotel, a hot bath and a very cold Vodka Martini.
Cotton
However, even Triple P might be tempted to join an expedition which includes Denise van Outen, Fearne Cotton, Cheryl Cole, Kimberly Walsh and Alesha Dixon. Amazingly these women (and some random chaps we couldn't care less about) are spending eight days climbing said mountain.

Cole

Walsh

Dixon

The thought of the two Girls Aloud ladies and Alesha sharing a tent (as they are) is, well, intense! We would even venture that we might be persuaded to follow these young ladies up some very steep inclines.


Van Outen finds the climb to be most stimulating. Or maybe it's just cold.




Good luck girlies! It's not an easy climb by anyone's standards. You can sponsor Alesha and the others here:


Women! Know your limits!




Speed limits that is. Yesterday, yet again, Agent Triple P was stuck behind a woman driving along in an unrestricted speed limit zone at 40mph. This happens again and again and we also find that our female passengers often say that Triple P is driving too fast for the road. Almost without exception this is because people don't know the UK national speed limits. The most common description we get is that it is 70mph on motorways, 60 mph on dual carriageways and 50mph on roads showing the black and white national speed limit sign.



Wrong! As the Highway Cshows it is 30mph in built-up areas, 70mph on motorways and dual carriage ways and 60mph on unrestricted single carriageway roads.






Some women we know insist on driving 5mph or so under what they think the limit is so that if they think it is 50 they drive at 45 when in fact it is 60. Grr! This causes Agent Triple P a great deal of stress!

Interestingly in Denmark they have explored this method of getting drivers attention as to what the speed limits are.




This is not a joke they really did this!

Most Searched Item...February


This month Miss Sophie Howard pulls ahead of Ayshea Brough who is still in at a strong number two. People are starting to search for Agent Triple P too, presumably because they have forgotten to bookmark the site, but this does indicate repeat visitors, amazingly.

The top 15 is as follows (last month's position in brackets):

1 (3) Sophie Howard
2 (1) Ayshea Brough
3 (-) Agent Triple P
4 (2) Luci Victoria
5 (4) Linda Lusardi
6 (5) Margaret Nolan
7= (7) Gabrielle Drake
7=(10) Fontainebleau Hotel
9 (-) Jade Ewen
10 (8) Danish Schoolgirls striptease
11 (12) Brande Roderick
12 (-) Kayleigh pearson
13 (-) Lauren Pope
14 (-) Kristy Brimelow
15 (11) Brigitte Barclay

Top 5 non-girlie searches


1 Fontainebleau Hotel (only one to make the overall top 15)

2 Norman Bel Geddes (nearly made top 15)

3 Sanger-Bredt Anti-podal bomber (also nearly made top 15)

4 Crisp packet Colours

5 How to Murder your Wife Soundtrack