Well, here we are again on Sunday, and it’s shopping day!  This here is a computer bug, you know.

If you remember, I promised you a weekly feature to help you with your shopping by finding you some neat stocking fillers gifts for your family and friends.  Not for Christmas, ohnononono.   I know it’s too early!

Oh, alright then. It is for Christmas.  But you know what?  It’s only a matter of weeks to the last posting date for some countries – in fact, if you were thinking of sending anything surface mail you’ve already missed the chance for some destinations.  So if you have people to buy for on the opposite side of the world, you’d better get thinking!

So today I bring you some really neat gifts for men – and we all know how hard they are to buy for, don’t we?  But I found a really cool Etsy shop for you, with a number of original gifts for men under £10!  The computer bug, from Clone Hardware, is only £9.54, can you believe it?  I think that’s really good.

How about a keyring?  Not just any old keyring, but one he’ll really like!

That one is from Clone Hardware, too.  Fun, isn’t it?  Costing a whopping great …. £7.63!

Talking of keyrings, here’s another shop with a truly original one.  You know men love the kind of stuff which is made of other cool stuff?  This keyring, from Nollie Designs, is made of a piece of recycled skateboard, so he can relive his mis-spent youth.  Unless of course he IS a mis-spent youth. Or even a perfectly well-behaved one who happens to like skateboarding.  I mean .. um … oh, forget it.  Anyway.   It’s only £4.45, so you really can’t go wrong for a stocking stuffer.

But let’s go back to Clone Hardware for a minute.  If he reads a lot, you could get one of these fun book marks

Good, eh?  And only £3.82!  I can’t believe how many nice things I’ve found for so little!

How about jewellery – does he wear jewellery?  I can imagine youngsters really loving this one – it’s made of that flat cable stuff, whatever the hell it’s called.

And how much is it?  £9.54. Still under a tenner.

And by the way, ManGifts have some great cuffs for under a tenner, too – in fact, they’re only £6.36, and they’re leather, too.  Go check them out.  They also have tiny little leather bound notebooks.  They’re all hand-made, so you won’t be buying mass-produced crap, and you’ll be helping a small business, which is always worth doing.

I dunno why, but these leather cuffs are all the rage right now.  Perhaps it’s Johnny Depp’s influence?  After all, look what he did for hats!!

One more?  OK, let me see…  How about a little set of desk toys for his inner child?  How could you possibly go wrong with these little cuties?

Fun, aren’t they?  They’re from Super Sock, who also do some really fun 4 and 8 GB flash drives for rather more than £10.  But you should take a look at the comic book wallets – oh, and those wonderful recycled comic book coasters in stone.  Some of those are under £10 .. the postage is a killer for the UK, but some of you live in the US, I know you do!

There you go!  Stocking stuffers for the men in your life, sorted.  Oh, and let me leave you with something to raise a smile (tee hee). 

Click if you dare!

As some of you may have discovered, my Blogger name is ‘Dogs and Depp‘ so this is quite a well-deserved title for this week’s ABC Wednesday post, don’t you think?

There he is, the delicious Johnny Depp, looking as handsome as ever, in a double play edition of The Tourist.  It’s not a deep movie, merely a bit of fluff, involving deception, double-dealings, death and also a great deal of fun, with our hero and heroine dashing about all over the delightfully decaying Italian city of Venice.

It’s ‘hugely enjoyable, escapist fun’ according to the Daily Mail, and it didn’t deserve the panning it got from the critics, in my opinion.  It’s directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, in case you are desirous of knowing such things, and while it’s too late to go and see it at the movies, you could buy the DVD!

Now, I’m late getting started today, and I have to take the lovely Sid to one of his PAT dog duties this afternoon, so this will be a short post, for me.  I hope you won’t be disappointed.

Here is my dippy black dog, Ranger, looking dashing in his new martingale collar.  Quite distinguished with his grey muzzle, isn’t he?

He’s not allowed to walk any real distance, so we take them both out, but one of us sits with Ranger somewhere he can delight in the view and be distracted for a while.

Because otherwise …

… he becomes dangerous to himself!  That foot is broken, Ranger, you daft dog!

Sid and Ranger do seem to enjoy each other’s company.  I just wish they’d be a little slower about it.  Dawdling would be better than dancing about like this.

He’s gained 2kg since he’s been with us and since his poor mouth has been sorted out, by the way, but yes, despite that, he is still underweight.

Anyway.  This is better.

Sid and Ranger deigning to share a duvet.   They are a little demanding at the moment, each wishing to be the one who is closest to me.  It makes life difficult at times, but it is nice that my company is so desirable.

And lastly, here they are dozing while doing that mirroring thing, but at an advanced level

I call this ‘Level three: Displaced‘ since to be true mirroring they’d have to be nose to nose, or Ranger would have to rotate himself anti-clockwise 180 degrees.  However, they’ve done their best under difficult circumstances, I think, so I’m awarding them a Distinction!

For more ABC posts, do visit Mrs Nesbitt!

I should be used to it by now, I suppose. The rumours, the denials, the confirmations, more denials .. but I don’t think ‘the word’ has been this wrong, this late, for a long while. True, the Depp publicity office never actually confirmed that Rango would have a premier in London, but the Mark Boardman site isn’t usually wrong. It’s what we obsessed- dedicated fans usually use when planning our campaigns … uh … trips.

But there you go. The Rango premiere in London … well, there isn’t going to be one. Right up to a couple of days ago, there is was in black and white – well, white and black, if truth were told – and my head was spinning with possible plans and who I might go with and how we might manage, trains, hotels, etc. And then I posted a link on a Johnny board to the details and someone said:

‘Um … there’s nothing in that link about a premiere!’

Whaaaa – ??

I looked, and sure enough. Nothing. Just a quiet mention of a ‘screening’ on Saturday 26th with no stars in attendance. Have they no consideration? At this late date, people will have booked hotels! In London!!

Oh, wait … some of you probably don’t know about Rango, right? Well, it’s a cartoon movie in which Johnny voices the main character, who happens to be a small green lizard.  Why does that remind me of something?  Anyway, it actually looks quite good, and I would have loved to have watched the filming, and not only because I could sit and watch Johnny Depp sit silently ploughing his way through ‘War and Peace’, or simply staring into space.

This is far, far better than that.*

See? And don’t you just love that giggle?

So. What exactly is Johnny Depp doing now and where is he? I think that’s what we all want to know, isn’t it? Especially after watching that little gem.

Well, Pirates of the Caribbean No. 4: ‘On Stranger Tides’ is due out this year in May. Everyone is looking forward to that one, especially since ‘the word’ is that they’ve dropped the convoluted and incomprehensible storylines in favour of a return to the simplicity and charm of the first one. But can we trust ‘the word’? Who knows? Still, let’s face it, a movie with Johnny Depp in it is still a movie with Johnny Depp in it, isn’t it? And Jack Sparrow is very decorative indeed! So that’s all right then.

But what is he doing right now? Let’s see. His next project will be as Barnabas Collins in ‘Dark Shadows’. We’re all pretty excited about that one, as you might imagine – and I never even saw the original series! Anyway, if you want news and updates about this one, there is a blog where you can get your fix.  It even has pictures of Johnny in it – and, of course, more up-to-date news than I can give you. However, this is still in the ‘casting’ stage, so I doubt if Johnny is actually working on that, although he might be hanging about with his buddy Tim Burton and giving his input on various things.

We’re all still waiting for the appearance of ‘The Rum Diary’, which is the film of a Hunter S Thompson book of the same name. That one was shot ages ago, but has still not been released. Perhaps they’re hoping for an Oscar? Who knows.

After that? Well, we were going to be treated to The Lone Ranger with a Johnny Depp version of Tonto, which would have been huge fun, but sadly this one has disappeared from the lists.  It used to be right there on IMDB as ‘(Rumoured) pre-production’. Many people are quite .. sad … about that. Well, OK, verging on ‘screamingly annoyed’ if the truth is told. But there you go. Life is full of disappointments.

And then there is something called ‘Triple Frontier’ being whispered in the halls of Filmdom. This is an action/adventure story which takes place on the borders of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, and that’s all I can tell you about that one, except that – if the rumours are to be believed – Tom Hanks will be in it too.

So .. where is Johnny right now? When he should have been girding those delightful loins for the screaming fans of London?

Well, wouldn’t you like to know?

Yes. And so would I, dammit!

* This video has disappeared once. If you come by and it’s not there, check back because I’ll be keeping an eye open and I’ll reinstate it if it happens again.

UPDATE: Since posting this, I have been informed by a member of the Johnny Depp Zone forum that Johnny Depp is currently following the Vanessa Paradis tour and has attended gigs in New York and LA over the last couple of days, so it’s a fair bet that he’s in LA right now … Or is it?

Anyway, it’s good to know that the man has some time for family stuff now and then, isn’t it?

Thank you JDZ!

Yesterday, OH and I were companionably tidying up the kitchen together. I was putting things away and wiping down surfaces and he was loading the dishwasher.

A happy domestic scene, no?

And then it happened.

OH: ‘Do you want this ‘dirtbag’ mug to go into the dishwasher?’

Puzzled, I stopped what I was doing and looked around.

THIS was the mug he was holding aloft for my inspection.

One of my prized Johnny Depp mugs!

I gasped.

Realising he had perhaps chosen the wrong word (which happens from time to time, suffering as he does from mild aphasia) he tried again.

OH (Flapping slightly and in a mild panic): ‘Sorry! Sorry! ‘Scumbag‘ mug!

My jaw dropped and I did the fish thing, speechless with outrage and shock.

OH (Now hopping from foot to foot): ‘Nonono!!! Wrong word! Wrong word!! I meant … um … I meant … I’ve forgotten the word. What do you call this mug?’

Me: (Icily): ‘Grunge*’.

OH (Digging his hole a bit deeper): ‘Yes! Grunge! Same meaning, though. I mean … well .. it was when I was growing up … ‘

He trailed off.

OH: ‘I’d better stop talking, hadn’t I?’

Me: ‘Dirtbag?’

OH: ‘Sorry! Sorry!’

Me: ‘SCUMBAG??’

OH: ‘It was the wrong word, alright?’

We both ended up laughing, as we usually do, but … well, really!!

You see, ‘grunge’ in this sense describes a fashion type. The original followers of grunge music were notable for their ripped jeans, plaid shirts, layers of clothing and (seemingly) uncombed hair – a look which most Johnny Depp fans will immediately recognise as his favourite casual look. He’s updated it and made it his own, of course, with scarves borrowed from Vanessa, bits and pieces given to him by his children and multiple layers of jewellery, but it’s still basically grungy.

He’s also an icon of grunge philosophy in that he really doesn’t give a shit about ‘looking cool’ or conforming to anything much, and therefore he is one of the coolest people on the planet.

So there.