Perfect 10

Anyone remember her?

Yup, that’s Nadia Comeneci. who achieved a perfect 10.0 in gymnastics at the 1976 Olympics.  Of course, as a callow pre-adolescent girl with no figure to speak of, she wasn’t a perfect 10 — that improvement would come later.

 

So why are you mentioning her at all, Kim?

Because later this year, she will be turning 60.  Here’s a more recent pic: 

You all have my permission to feel really old.  (And I know, she’s probably gone blonde to disguise the grey.  Bad choice, in my opinion, but I still would.)

Kim’s Hell

This is what happens when I get curious about stuff and set out to explore.

Last week, I read that former Spain- and Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas (one of the best goalies ever, btw) has divorced his journototty wife Sara:

…and moved to a “Japanese-style” penthouse in La Finca.

Where dat?

Not being familiar with Spain, I eventually found out that it’s a swanky suburb of Madrid.  (I should also mention that I caught the giggles because I first read “Finca” as “Fica” — the Italian slang for “pussy” — but I recovered and went on.)

I should have stopped upon learning that La Finca was a Madrid suburb.  But noooo, I had to see what it looks like.  Casilla’s penthouse apartment (see here) should have given me a clue, but when I DuckDucked it, I saw stuff like this… endless examples of foul glass and concrete boxes modernity:

       

I could go on, but I think you get the drift.  (If you want to see bigger pictures — gawd help you — just DuckDuck “La Finca Madrid”.)

As a rule, I quite like traditional Spanish architecture — especially the Catalonian style:

 

…and as for apartments and public buildings:

 

Compared to those, La Finca Horrible doesn’t even come close:

I think I need to look at something beautiful, just to recover from that hideousness.  Here’s Paz Vega:

Now that’s some classic Spanish architecture for you.

Perils Of Age

The other day I was skimming Teh Intarwebz, idly looking at smut pics of pretty women, and saw this creature:

I had (and still have) no idea who she is, but my lecherous gaze was somewhat tempered by my feeling of guilt for ogling a teenage girl.  (Of course, it turns out that she’s actually 30, so my guilt was misplaced.)

Which brings me to my point.

As we get older — I’m fairly sure I’m not alone in this — everyone not looking like the late Prince Philip looks about twelve years old, and I often wonder when we started promoting adolescents to positions of power and authority.

I’m not even talking about celebrity women, who with the aid of surgery can look decades younger than their actual age.  I’m talking about everyday people we see on television, who are supposedly in charge of some important function, but who seem to still need adolescent acne cream.

Then again, who cares?  As long as we can ogle the likes of Carol Vorderman, Annabella Sciorra or Jennifer Grey (all aged 60):

   

…I don’t really care that foreign policy is being run by someone who looks like Doogie Howser, or that Steve Urkel somehow became President of the United States.

Raving Beauty

Whereas Sabine Schmitz was taken from us at age 51, Jessica Walter — one of my favorite character actresses of all time — held out till 80.

Here we go:

In later years, she just aged like the finest wine:

And now [sigh]  I’ll just have to take Malory Archer off Ye Olde Buckette Lyst:

R.I.P. Jessica.  You were always one of the best, and one of my favorites.