"I'm gonna be another Marilyn, bleach my head and get real thin."

We all know how much I love deceased movie stars, so here are a couple of nice pictures of the dazzling Miss Monroe.  I happened across them one day and liked them so much that I 'right-click-save-as'ed immediately.  The change from skinny, girlish Goldilocks on a beach to platinum bombshell in specs is fascinating. And the last one's just plain funny.

Go easy, Lorelei!

Into the wardrobe

I'm no Molly MacDonald, but I thought I might as well let Bette on Toast at least masquerade as a respectable style blog before it inevitably cannonballs into "Oh God, she's talking about dead movie stars again" territory. Here are a few of my own sartorial efforts. (As you can tell, I never did figure out a very good place on my shelves to prop up my camera for timer shots. The actually good ones were taken by Stephanie when we were on holiday. So much easier when you have a personal camera monkey around the house.)

And can you guess which lady-of-the-manor style icon I was feeling influenced by this morning??

Hurrah for Molly-style! I so love dressing up.
(I know the beret is unspeakably chic, but it was actually a necessity because today my hair looks like it hasn't seen shampoo for a fortnight.)

Of all the garments you see above...

3 were from charity shops

2 were from vintage shops

1 was from ebay

4 were presents or hand-me-downs

5 were from real shops off the sale rail (4 from Oasis, because I'm a total floozy for Oasis clothes.)

And only 3 were from real shops for real money!

Oh dear, I didn't mean to post quite so many pictures of myself. Honest!!

On another note, Ohmygodthephotouploading/positioningtoolhereonBlogspotisacompleteandutterpaininthebloodyARSEcomebackLivejournalallisforgiven.

"Look at you! Straight off a shortbread tin!"

It's been rather quiet here at Bette on Toast Headquarters lately, with only Greta for company.

She don't say much.

To replace conversation and human interaction I've been playing on YouTube, and oh what a treasure trove, all of Monarch of the Glen is on there!  My friend Helen and I loved that series when we were at school.  I liked brooding, beautiful Archie and she liked Duncan and his kilt.

Why neither of us noticed Fergal in series two is a mystery to me.

We all wanted to be Lexie, but this time around I've been hankering after Molly's wardrobe with all its vintage finery. ("I stopped buying clothes years ago, when the money ran out.  I don't even buy knickers anymore.  I just don't bother wearing them.  Mind you, I don't think Hector's noticed." - Episode 3!)

Full-length, lace-trimmed red evening dress.  Very Mrs Claus!

Wearing a smart little blue number (with unsubtle, opponent-distracting cleavage) to challenge an unscrupulous blackguard at poker, win back her diamond pendant and save Glenbogle!
You can't see it, but she's got a black satin hair ribbon and gold spectacles on a long silver chain.

Judging from the first two photos it's scary work wearing a brown velvet suit with lace cuffs and neck-thing, with tartan, er, Scottish scarf-thing and a tam-o-shanter with an entire dead bird on it.

L-R:  Sorting out the husband whilst in a ballgown with sleeves as big as her head - shortly before "You, sir, are an appalling little oik.  Unhand my wife!" ;  I couldn't snap a good picture of the whole thing, but it was covered in little beads and went swish swish.  I long to wear a dress that goes swish swish, don't you? ;  "You look so wonderful in that frock tonight.  Is it new?", "It was - a quarter of a century ago!"

My faaaavourite dress.  Red and white POLKADOTS, accessorised with pearls and a gigantic hat.  Flippin' love it.

I even like this look!

Those are all from series 1 and 2.  I like the early ones better, before they got all carried away with dying patriarchs and wrong-side-of-the-blanket half-brothers and estranged daughters and entirely unsuitable dalliances between the dowager and the groundskeeper.

Blogging is actually quite scary

Hello!  Welcome to Bette on Toast.

I am your host:

I like posing.

Come on in, wipe your feet and pull up a chair.  I'm not going to bother to introduce myself, I'm just going to barge right in, but if you care to know a little more about me, you may read the Bette on Toast Archives at their original location, (shamefaced) Livejournal. Here they be: http://betteontoast.livejournal.com/  I am very boring and talk mainly about my job and dead actresses, or if you go further back it's my dissertation and dead actresses.  But I think I'm extremely witty, so there.  ;op

I should explain, I actually thought of starting this blog with a Project in mind.  I saw a Project 360 once (For you non-t'internet-savvy, not-down-with-the-kids oldies (Simon), that's a thing where you have a certain topic, and you take a photo or make a post on your topic every day for a year) where a girl had taken a picture of her outfit every day.  Later I learned that so-called 'What I Wore' blogs are pretty common, and I thought "Hey!  I like dressing up and I like taking photos of myself, and best of all I like talking about myself - I could do one of those!"  However, it was a long time coming because first I didn't have a camera, then I did have a camera, and he was lovely but too antiquated and primitive to actually do much, then I had a good camera, but try as I bloody might I could not find ANY convenient ledge in my bedroom where I could rest the cam so it could take a photo that all of me could fit in.  The room wasn't big enough.  THEN I moved house, and my new bedroom had a) a gorgeous 1930s door for a backdrop, and b) shelves directly opposite the door with a variety of props that would surely provide at least one camera ledge of appropriate height.  SO, I moved in and started posing, and got bored of it within a week.  Maybe at a later date I'll post a few from before I got bored and lazy.

Since this first of my new-look pieces of Toast is dull and has no substance whatever, here's a funny video.  Next month I'll celebrate five years living in Newcastle, and I STILL can't do a convincing Geordie accent.

Can't work out how to embed YouTube vids, so here's the link instead...