Cheeky Cheeky....!

The British are widely mocked for their reserved natures and stiff upper lips, especially by our more liberated European cousins and never more so than when it comes to "l'amour". Ha! Little do they know what goes on behind closed doors! Whilst the Belgians are straightening their cucumbers, the French are passionately cremé-ing their Anglais and the Italians are "Doing It Better", we are invariably (as the News of the World would have us believe) stuffing our mouths with oranges and being spanked by an overweight couple from Wigan whilst "dogging" on the M6.

Now, as I’m sure you can imagine, we at Guilty Pleasures like things a little more risqué than risky (and very very much less revolting...) and as such believe in a much simpler time, a time when it was all about what was hidden behind a fan, feather or tassel and not what was shoved, bounced or slapped surgically, into your face through your 3D TV or monitor.

I was lucky enough to have been brought up on a diet of Benny Hill, Kenny Everett and Carry On films so I worry for today’s kids. In the Age of Instant Gratification, they don’t have to wait until Saturday to buy their Kylie cassettes from the town and they certainly don’t have to tape their favourite tracks from the Sunday afternoon Chart Show. Everything and anything they need can be found online and so there is no innocence and very little "Cheeky" these days, it's all hard-core Hentai midget porn and ITunes for today’s youngsters! They don’t read Just 17 and practice kissing on the back of their hand, in fact they are barely 17 and they practice a lot more than kissing....on each other! I cannot imagine what the kids on my street would make of Benny Hill and I wholeheartedly expect they would describe Kenny's fooling’s dressed as Cupid Stunt, as a bit "battyboy". That said, I could easily spend a rainy Sunday afternoon eating cupcakes and watching Babs expertly fling off a brazier or fire off a minxy giggle but maybe even I would find Ben & Ken slightly odd by today’s standards.

And so, to the point! The Brits like all great sexually repressed nationalities were masters of the naughty, the "tongue in cheek" if you pardon the blatant innuendo. Growing up, as I did very close to the South Seas (ok that sounds all very South Pacific doesn’t it? Maybe it’s closer to the truth if we just say Southsea....) life was all candyfloss; kiss me quick hats and Seaside Sauciness - in the form of postcards rather than sailors I should add!

A friend had asked me to create a cake that she could take to a celebration at the beach last September. Now at that time we were still basking in the 4 minutes of sun that our summers allow and it got me thinking back to my youth and giggling at the large breasted "dolly birds" and skinny little guys on the postcards we used to receive and send to our friends. I remembered the vibrant colours and bawdy humour and desperately wanted to transfer the feeling to the cake.

Luckily, this lovely lady always gives me a free reign to design anything I desire and thankfully, she is not so easily offended! (Check back soon as I have been re-commissioned for a Line Dancing Extravaganza and I've been told I can make the chest as big as I like!!)

So here is the Seaside Sauciness cake in all its bawdy, rock sucking glory!

And remember boys and girls in the words of the Transylvanian ambassadors to excellent pop tunes...

"Come and smile, don't be shy
Touch my bum, this is life
Cheeky Cheeky
We are the cheeky girls
We are the cheeky girls
You are the cheeky boys
You are the cheeky boys
Cheeky Cheeky"

And now it’s onto the next...........I’m afraid my dears there can be no rest for the decadently wicked cheeky ;o) x

Feeling The Burn.....

Having grown up with a figure that Posh Spice and Skeletor would kill for; I have never felt the need to jump on the fad diet bandwagon (although I did have to be rather careful during severe gusts of wind and whilst walking over cattle grids)! Those were the days, thinking I could stuff myself until the ends of time with Sara Lee frozen chocolate gateaux and RingPops. But our crazy youthful decisions always come back to haunt us and as time has crept steadily onwards, I’ve been growing steadily outwards.

Summer and Streisand once said, "Enough is Enough", and taking their harmonius advice, a friend and I ceremoniously dumped our Sara Lees, spent a fortune in Lillywhites and joined the local gym. Now this all seemed great at first, a real honeymoon period for us all but after a few bad episodes involving a yoga teacher who was clearly basing her classes on Victoria Wood basing a sketch on a Hippy Commune pretending to be trees - we, like 80% of people who join Gyms, stopped attending. We didn’t call, we didn’t write and we certainly did not "Poke" the gym. Our beautiful relationship was over. It was dead to us... (Well I should say dead to me really, my friend did allegedly continue in the mornings but since I wouldn’t get out of bed before 8.30, I really have no proof).

During my period of relative inactivity, (unless you count paying for the gym as similar to going to the gym...) my neighbour invited me to try her PowerPlate. Now these machines are essentially a vibrating platform, originally designed to stop astronaut’s muscle mass wasting away whilst in space. However, after three organ-dislodging, eye shaking and headache inducing minutes I confirm I shall not be exploring space or indeed the PowerPlate section of the gym any time soon. This is something I will not be attempting again until there is a Sancerre holder attached to avoid accidental spillage and or electrocution. Meanwhile my neighbour is happily bouncing pennies of her stomach and is discovering that her old clothes fit better than ever.

Like the rest of the nation, January saw the return of us, to the gym and although we are only 2 months in to the New Year, I am loving it!! The great news is in just 2 months’ time a brand new exercise plan will be sweeping the county, hot from the US. "Booooorrrring" I hear you say, but no. You have never been so wrong (I have but that another story and I'm conscious that I’ve taken a lot of your time already..!)

http://www.willpowermethod.com/

For the past 11 Years Willpower and Grace Training has been taking the USA by storm and is a fantastic fusion of postures (a la Yoga and mat work Pilates) with a barefoot cardio workout. Speaking of barefoot last week I had quite an embarrassing gym kit incident (don’t worry this isn’t a "do it in your vest and pants" story.....) So I'm all changed for Pilates and having a good root* around in my bag for my second trainer.
* For the benefit of my Australian readers please replace the word "Root" with "Look" as I promise I was most certainly "looking" in my bag and not doing anything potentially illegal in a public place).
Unfortunately, it appears that my Nemesis has been hard at work once more. Taking time out from her "sinister plan to foil Gotham City" Twiglet seems to have rooted (yes she may have, either way...) through my bag and ran off with my shoe (possibly using it for her Body Pump/Body Attack Class with Charlie).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvEOjDeLWkA

So I'm left like an Edwardian prize fighter to walk from the changing room to the studio in my Italian Leather work shoes. Now not having a camera at that exact moment was a real shame, as my friend will testify. However as she enjoyed it so much I have re-created my gym look for that day with the help of a passing chicken.

Ok? Finished sniggering? Back to Wp&G then, so what’s the best part? Well our American cousins have dubbed this Will & Grace Training so COUNT ME IN!! As this is not set to hit our studio until April 2011, I have taken the liberty of preparing a mock-up of how the class will no doubt look....

So, if like me, you have had too many cakes, or been a little bit overindulgent licking the bowl (you know who you are...) then you are quite welcome to join me - just make sure you have appropriate footwear!

And now it’s onto the next...........I’m afraid my dears there can be no rest for the decadently wicked x

So Long, Farewell...!

Ok Guys, put down the streamers, step away from the balloons and re-freeze the prawn vol-Au-vents....I'm not going anywhere! However as previously mentioned, our very good friend Rosario is gracefully retiring to her beautiful Miami Condo (I believe she will be 2 doors down from Dexter...) for some much needed R&R.
So Rosario's final hurrah? A 72 cupcake explosion in black and pink with lashings of glitter, sequins and marabou (yes Elton, I am available for your next wedding). The rather excitingly named RosarioPro made her fabulous debut (and fond farewell) at a recent 40th birthday and now bows out in style.






Speaking of elegant retirements I am put in mind of a my friend who recently retired from our office. This particular friend was "lucky" enough to be shown every creation that I struggled into the office with and we always had such fun chuckling at the prudish City Types who were "shocked and offended" at some of the more lets say revealing cakes.

I thought it may be a nice surprise to make something for her to remember me by and figuring that a life sized bust of me sculpted in finest marble may be prohibitively expensive (and rather heavy to bring on the bus), I opted for the cake option.
Its sometimes difficult to picture which direction I want to take a design, often I can end up with too much information about a client (which is stored for future blackmailing purposes, in case you were interested) and sometimes too little. In this case I had so much that I wanted to include its was difficult to know where to start - but one thing kept coming back to me. My friend is lucky enough to have a home in Turkey and although I have never visited I am quite sure that she has a pool and as we all know, it would be impossible if not a completely against every decadence, to have a pool without a pool boy (potentially in a thong...). In fact I'm pretty sure it would be against the law to have one without the other.



Anyway, with images of pool boys making the very small circuit around my brain I got to thinking (its a wonder I hadn't passed out by this point) how to bring this idea altogether. Now I know my geography can be fairly shaky but I am fully aware that Greece is not in Turkey, however I kept picturing the stage of Mamma Mia as a surround for the pool - its a very simple design but just so effective I was desperate to use it. Mamma Mia being set on a Greek Island and not at my friends house in Turkey did not phase me one bit!



So with the pool (+boy) and tiling sorted it was time to bring in our friend. Now as she had worked on our reception for so long I guessed she would miss it once she left. The solution? An icing replica of our front lobby! Since this is a retirement cake I decided to replace the uncomfortable chair with some luxurious Turkish cushions - if you cant have luxury when you leave work when can you?!!

Some of the more observant among you may notice the distinct lack of PoolBoy on the cake - however if you look closer you will see that it is not a slice of Dominoes Pepperoni Hot n Spicy floating in the crystal waters.....its the elusive pool boys thong (of course..). It would appear that whilst executing a triple spin dive (or some such sporting term) he has hit the water with such speed (aerodynamically waxed chest) that his uniform has flown clean off - whilst our friend keeps watch (for health and safety purposes, of course).



And now it’s onto the next.....I’m afraid my dears there can be no rest for the decadently wicked x