Posts Tagged ‘idris elba’

Top Google Searches

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

I monitor my blog stats in a pretty hawk like fashion. It gives me a sense of what people like and don’t like, which posts are popular and what have you, but most importantly, it tells me what people are Googling that leads them to this blog. Sometimes those searches are pretty darn funny so I thought I’d share a few of the classics with you here.

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Posted in life | 13 Comments »

Bang(s) Goes 2010

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

Well, it’s been quite a year in Bangs World. I moved back to England at the end of ’09 after six years of galavanting in various cities around the world and wasn’t quite sure what lay ahead. Then 2010 started and my luck took a crazy turn. As the year rolled on, something more and more mind blowing would happen each month. I couldn’t quite take it all in myself. But I sure have had some great times and as always, documented them here on this blog.

In January, I lamented the fact that no one had told me that my lover (in my mind) Idris Elba had been DJing at a place I often frequent.

Well the universe must have been listening, because in February, I won a competition to have Idris Elba call me on Valentine’s Day. It was a joyous, momentous occasion and I stand by my theory that Idris totally wants me. I made this video, which I was later told, he watched. Mortification!

On came March when I caused a bit of a hoo-ha by declaring that Europeans Dress Better Than Americans – that made for an interesting comments section. I also talked about how much I hate runners – oh how that came back to bite me in the ass later in the year.

In April, I got some Jimmy Choos and was oh so happy about it.

In May, I shared probably one of the more personal posts I’ve ever done on this here blog, where I talked about my struggle to come to terms with my looks. It sparked some great discussion and yes, reading the comments made me cry, multiple times. I still get emails about that post and am so moved that it touched other people the way it did.

In June, one of my readers questioned whether I hate women – how could I not respond to that one?! I flung maxi dresses into a category with Uggs boots and Crocs – an opinion which lead to someone who had been very keen to work with me refusing to do business with me at all. Seriously. So very professional. The Sex in the City 2 movie came out. I was unimpressed.

In July, I wrote an open letter to parents, letting them know that the sun does not actually shine out of their child’s ass. Surprisingly, parenting groups didn’t call for my beheading. A group of bloggers got together to write about the shambolic Mac/Rodarte collection which lead to the line being scrapped – blogger victory! Then I stirred up a bunch ‘o shit by writing a post called Woman Law: Being a Lady - behold the hate it garnered!

In August, I got fed up with people asking me to write for them for free. I got up on my soap box, wrote a post called Blogsploitation and it turned into a kind of protest march with bloggers from all corners coming out saying they felt the same – some really great comments that show how much of a solid community bloggers are.

I had quite a few requests from my American readers who thought it’d be funny to hear me rap and so, in September, I debuted Bangs Goes Rap with my pretty epic rendition of Jay Z’s 99 Problems. I am waiting to a) become a YouTube sensation and b) get a record contract. I was also nominated by my beautiful readers for a Cosmo Blog Award and came runner up in my category, which was totally amazeballs.

October was a landmark month for me. After being approached back in May to run a half marathon, D-Day arrived on 10th October when I actually ran 13 miles and didn’t die. Hands down one of the most amazing moments of my life. I then wrote about the drama I had going on behind the scenes with the PR company who’d asked me to do the half mara and caused a bit of an internet shit storm.

In November and totally stepped out of my comfort zone and wrote about my acne and my lovely commenters surrounded me with love and support like never before. I celebrated three years of the blog and wrote a Beginner’s Guide to Blogging to help out anyone who might be thinking of taking that step into the blogosphere. I also signed up for the Paris Half Marathon. I put a call out on Twitter to see if anyone wanted to do it with me and overnight, I had 19 girls signed up. Team Bangs on the Run was born!

Rounding the year out, in December, I gave you a guide to X Factor and warned you about Bitchy Boys all while making embarrassing videos of myself training for the Paris Half Mara.

It has been one helluva a year, but it would’ve been nothing without the support, encouragement and love I’ve received from you, my readers, my lovely blog family. Thank you so much for laughing with me, crying with me and sharing my joy. It really does mean the world to me.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see what 2011 has in store!

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Posted in life | 10 Comments »

Field of Dreams Project

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

I used to use the term ‘Field of Dreams’ as a bit of a joke. That line ‘if you build it, they will come’ from the classic Kevin Costner movie, always stuck with me. I can’t really remember at what point I decided to apply that philosophy to my life – I’ve never really had any interest in getting dead baseball players to come play in my garden – but somehow it just started to make sense.

‘If you build it, they will come’

Say it, go on, say it, out loud, to yourself, right now. No one’s listening. Repeat it a few times. Really listen to the words. Say it enough and you’ll start to believe it too. By the time I got round to winning a phone call from Idris Elba through ‘Field of Dreamsing’ (talking about it as though it WILL happen, it’s an inevitability, a probability, not a possibility), there was no stopping me.

I use the Field of Dreams idea for most things in my life. The big things that I want to do, I plan on Field of Dreamsing them. I talk about them as if they’ve already happened, I’m living in that moment, I’m imagining every part of what it feels like when I have it.

I started tweeting about Field of Dreams a lot and it caught on. People regularly tweet me what they’re Field of Dreamsing about and when they’re shared on that kind of platform, people support and motivate them.

I constantly point out that the whole idea behind Field of Dreams is that it’s no use just imagining what you want – you have to take proactive steps to make it happen. You can’t just sit around thinking about it and expect it to fall in your lap. But by speaking about it in a positive way, you’re going to attract positivity to it and before you know it, you’ll have made a baby step or a giant leap in the right direction.

The more people started to talk about it on Twitter, the more I thought I have to progress the idea further. I created a Twitter account – @FieldofDreamser – for people to tweet their Field of Dreams to, while I worked on creating a website to take it to the next level.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that time is now. May I present to you www.fieldofdreamsproject.tumblr.com

It’s a website with a bit of a twist. The idea is that people will send their Field of Dreams in – yes, via regular mail, using stamps and such like – and I’ll post them on the site. You can send them on a postcard, in a letter, on the back of a bus ticket for all I care. You can write your overall life goal, make a collage of pictures illustrating what you want, you can write one line about what step you’re going to take towards your Field of Dreams today, you could even send in your five year plan.

Why mail them? Simple – your Field of Dreams won’t happen overnight. It takes work. Email is too instantaneous. I really believe in sitting down, thinking it through and writing it out. That simple action of putting pen to paper will help you think about what it is you’re really trying to achieve.

When it’s posted on the site, it’s up there as a reminder to you about what you’re aiming for, to keep you motivated. And you never know, someone reading might just be able to help you take a step towards your Field of Dreams.

So, what are you waiting for? Send me your Field of Dreams and let’s get this site crackin’!

Field of Dreams

PO BOX 299

Leeds

W.Yorks

LS16 0EY

UK

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I’m shortlisted for a Cosmo Blog Award in the Sex & Relationships category. Voting closes at midnight on August 31st and I’d love you to vote for me!

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Posted in life | 9 Comments »

Bangs & a Bun: Live & Direct!

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

If you follow me on Twitter, you probably would have heard me talking about Betta Kultcha a few weeks ago. Betta Kultcha is an event here in Leeds, where people do five minute presentations on something they love/are passionate about/interested in. The presentations are done with PowerPoint. You put together 20 slides and they change every 15 seconds. 20 x 15 = 5 minutes.

I had been asked to do it a while ago and before I knew what I’d let myself in for, I signed up. I then spent the next few weeks putting together my slides and presentation and generally crapping myself. I decided to do my presentation on the back story and run up to my phone call with Idris Elba. It was called The Wire and How It Makes Dreams Come True: A Tale of Baltimore Drug Gangs and Internet Stalking.

I made the presentation the day after I’d had two wisdom teeth out in a pretty painful procedure. I had a face like a chipmunk (the extreme close up camera angles in the above video are not helping the situation) and I was in a lot of pain as I was talking. I was nervous and it shows. I’ve never really done anything like this before. I’m a blogger for goodness sake. I’ll happily chat away to people from behind my computer screen all day, but to actually get up in front of a room of 60 people and talk for 5 minutes? Well, I may as well have been doing it in front of a packed out crowd at Wembley Stadium for how nervous I was.

But it’s one of those things I just had to conquer. Facing my fears and all that. If I never speak in public, I’ll never get better at it.

So, the above video, with my chipmunk face and nerves, is my first attempt. It’s a little cringeworthy for me to watch and I was hesitant about putting it up here, but hell, if you searched for it, you’d find it anyway, so I thought I’d embarrass myself on my own terms.

So I hope you enjoy my silly story and that my public speaking skills just get better from here on in.

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Posted in video blogs | 13 Comments »

The Day Idris Elba Called Me

Monday, February 15th, 2010

The Day Idris Elba Called Me from Muireann Carey-Campbell on Vimeo.

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Posted in video blogs | 41 Comments »

Feel Good Friday Mixtape

Friday, February 12th, 2010

If you’re following me on Twitter, you’ll know that I got some very exciting news last night. Idris Elba, yes, the man, the legend, my true love, will be calling me on Valentine’s Day. I entered a competition on Punch Bowl Blog to win a call from him. I’m not a lucky person. Stuff like this doesn’t happen to me. But of all the competitions in all the world, this is one it was only right that I win!

I embarked on a little positive affirmations exercise and just started talking as if I’d already won it. I kept saying ‘When Idris calls me on Sunday…’ and ‘When are these people going to tell me I won the call from Idris?’ So when I got the email last night telling me I had in fact won it, I damn near passed out. Naturally, all my friends and Twitter followers now think it was a fix. No amigos, Idris just can’t resist my charms any longer. It was meant to be! There are quite simply no words to explain how excited I am.

So, since there are no words, here’s a little mixtape I made for you! I put a few tunes together that give me that Friday feeling, make me happy, get me shakin’ my groove thang and all that good stuff. I plan on doing a mixtape each week – let me know if you like the idea or not or if there’s any particular tunes you’d want me to include. Just call me DJ Bangs.

Feel Good Friday by bangsandabun

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Posted in life | 6 Comments »

Missed Connection

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

I believe my love of Idris Elba is well documented on this site, is it not? You will not find a more dedicated fan of The Wire than me. You know how much I love him? I actually paid, cash money, to see Obsessed at the cinema. Yeah, that crappy movie he did with Beyonce? Yeah, I saw that. Paid money to see it. And it clearly wasn’t for any deep-rooted love of Beyonce, lemme tell ya. So, given how much I heart Idris, why are you all standing in the way of our love?

Yeah, that’s right, I said it! You just don’t want to see us happy! When I was down in London over the weekend, I spent my friday night doing a whole bunch of nothing. I wandered around Notting Hill, stuffed my face at my favourite restaurant, caught up with a friend. All of which, I could have done without (no offense to my friend). Cut to Saturday and randomly, some of my Twitter peeps tell me that Idris was DJing/hanging out/generally looking like a fine specimen of a man at one of my favourite bars, Marketplace, the night before.

You don’t understand. I used to hang out at Marketplace so much, it may as well be called MYplace. When I left for New York, I had my leaving party there. I’ve sat at and/or danced on every table. I’ve squeezed in the booths with way too many friends. I’ve backed it up on every inch of the dance floor. So how, HOW I ask you, was I not aware that Idris Elba, my love, was gonna be there on Friday night?! This is a travesty!

Had I been informed ahead of time, I would have dug out my favourite heels and my best dress (the perfect mix of ‘class’ and ‘skank’) and strutted my way down there. I would have swayed my hips hypnotically to the beat of whatever the hell he was playing; jazz, soul, hip hop, afro-latino jazz fusion, grime, alt-rock – whatever, bring it – my booty will shake to it. I would have laughed at his jokes, leaned into him slowly, brushed up against him – hell, I would have run my full gamut of flirting tricks. And maybe, just maybe, he would have fallen for them. If not, I’m pretty sure I could have at least gotten a hug, or a picture, or escorted away by security.

So next time people, don’t try to stand in the way of the non-existent, psychotic, blossoming love between Idris and I. A phone call, a ten-minute warning, something, anything, would be appreciated. Thanks!

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Posted in relationships | 9 Comments »