One of my lovely, wonderful, incredible fellow Richard Armitage fans has treated us all by unearthing a couple of photos that are in the public domain (fingers crossed here) that many have not seen:
He went from this:
to this:
Damn!
That incredible looking man with the sweet boy hopefully still inside him.
Photo find courtesy of Wendy. Top one supposedly associated with 42nd Street. Bottom one supposedly taken in the Twin Towers after a New York performance of Macbeth.
Thank you, Wendy. I’m wonderfully refreshed in the middle of this terrible drought. :D
edit: Did I just compromise my principles? I’m not sure. If I did, then I’ll run backwards. It’s my understanding that these pictures are in the public domain, or I would not have posted them. Sadly, some may be there unintentionally. I have no way of knowing that, so I posted.
Didn’t I say this was the upcoming post? Yes, I’m feeling a bit cheesy, which is good for this blog. It’s when I don’t feel cheesy that I can’t really get into it.
So where was I? Oh yeah, I wanted to talk about Lucas North. No, it doesn’t matter that you’ve put that unpleasantness behind you, I haven’t. For about a year now I’ve been crafting posts to deal with my “issues” with Spooks. The problem is that more than half of them are rants, but bear with me as I decide which ones to inflict on you and give Lucas his due. I owe that to Richard Armitage and his wonderful ability to develop a character.
In the meantime, a little teaser from the Spooks 7 set:
For those who have been following this blog for quite a while, this isn’t a new one, but I had to post it again for someone, somewhere who is an Armitage lover and might have missed it the first time ’round. This picture about takes my head off. Seriously, I think I would swoon if I saw someone that good looking standing in front of me. If you don’t feel the effect, click on it to zoom in, and click again to really zoom in. Go ahead; you’ll be glad you did. :D
Okay, onto a new teaser for the rest of you:
How interesting to observe him at work and that closely. If I’m being honest, and I like to think I’m very honest, I would love that. It would be much more rewarding than having him sign an autograph for me that I would merely place in a box somewhere and probably never look at again. But these pictures? These are fascinating. And do I have to make the disclaimer that I would not post anything that was in a private setting? Apparently I feel compelled hence the question. :D Obviously, these aren’t private, and I appreciate Richard Armitage allowing himself to be photographed at work. He could have precluded that, but he didn’t. I know it might even have been irritating since he is a hyper-sensitive person. As a graduate of the Institute for Advanced Armitage Studies, I believe I’m qualified to make that assessment of him, and it’s immaterial if this is a manifestation of CW. It feels good. :D
Off to figure out how to get closure on Lucas.
Behind the scenes photos of Spooks 7 courtesy of Kuchinggirl. More of her lovely work coming up.
P.S. My boy got All-American. Sorry, I couldn’t help but sneak that in since I’m so proud of him!!
The best laid schemes… Oh how they can blow up in our faces. Thankfully, since I’m not a man, I must be a mouse. Not sure yet, but for a few minutes a couple of nights ago, I could have put my fist through a wall. This morning I’m still a little unsure of myself but less so as the clock ticks. And the clock ticking is what started all of this here. You thought it was Richard Armitage? Hang around, and I’ll disabuse you of that notion although there might be some confusion when posts like this appear.
I still can’t look at that picture without blinking my eyes and shaking my head to clear it. Ironically, that really might be his sexiest picture.
And since I usually muddle up the paragraph breaks in my posts not to mention all of my other grammatical sins, I might as well do it up right and just place them wherever I want and hope you understand my convoluted mind. Honestly, I never have known the best way to place paragraph breaks; topic sentences mystify me. So glad that hasn’t stopped me. Now for the awkward transition.
Sometime last weekend an item from RAFrenzy inadvertently posted on my personal Facebook wall, and if you need to heat some coffee or tea, you can place it next to my head where the steam is coming out. Previously I just disliked Facebook, now I despise it. This has jeopardized my anonymity to a degree it has never happened during the life of the blog. Yeah, I know some of you know who I am because I’ve let you know, and for all of you other RA fans who may have guessed, I’m not concerned about you. It’s the family I don’t want reading. SO and the kids are not so much the problem. I mean the extended family. They would not get it, so I don’t want them reading and possibly giving input. If I did, they would already know about it. Wait! Some of them now do. Damn Facebook.
So how did this happen? Oh, I’m going to tell you so I can give this rant full vent and also give you a heads up. It happened on my phone where I haven’t mastered the ability to control scripts so I only have running the ones I want. For the uninitiated, scripts drive the web page you’re on, and sometimes scripts include all sorts of nasty things that you don’t really want running. For me Facebook is nasty, and especially so when the Facebook mobile app will not let me log out, and I have to clear my data every time I want to make sure it’s not logged in, and even then it’s not a sure thing. Can you see that steam now?! Let me make this really plain. If you’re logged into Facebook, and you are on a site that has a link to Facebook, you can inadvertently post a “Like” to your wall. Given that links to Facebook have wormed their way onto virtually every site on the web, there is a vulnerability you might be posting things to your FB wall that you never intended [waves hand vigorously in the air while saying ‘choice’ words]. Same thing with Twitter, which I still like, but I may ended up despising for the same reason.
And I wouldn’t have been on my phone if I hadn’t been determined to work on my blog post about Richard’s back. Okay, enough of that rant, but just know that despite my irritation, I’m not letting this keep me from blogging. On to the good stuff.
I did promise some more pictures, which I really was about to post a couple of nights ago before I got rattled.
His size and vantage point scream masculinity, but that’s not enough to make these pictures so compelling. His attentive nature is still evident. Man, I really have a bad case of CWS. Who woulda thunk a set of pictures of his back would bring on such a bout?
This one really does make me think I can reach out and hug him:
This one almost looks like a kid trying to get the lay of the land:
It is amazing to me how he can still convey a purity without using his facial expressions. Yep, I have a raging case of CWS.
May I beg forgiveness for not posting regularly and for teasing you all so terribly with the Spooks behind the scenes pictures? Yeah, okay, maybe I’ve really messed you all around. But do you really want to hear my excuses about why I haven’t been posting? Yep, I thought not, and really, I have no desire to rehash it. I think I’ve made plenty of excuses on this blog already. LOL!
Give me until Monday, and I will definitely post some of the photos, but in the meantime, just know that I’ve had all sorts of shit happening (yeah, I had to get one excuse in :D). The good news is that I’m still smiling, and SO is still smiling as well.
For those who have followed the trials and tribulations of the Frenz household, just know that we’re alive and things are improving. October 6th will be an especially important date for us, and I cannot wait for it to get here. For those of you who have no clue what I’m referring to, my apologies. I hate cryptic, but I must be cryptic in the interest of the family. This was just the quickest way to communicate with those who are keeping up.
I can’t stand it! I have to give you one photo:
Deep breath…..(sigh)….I think I may live.
No matter how many times I view this photo, it still gets me. Maybe because I don’t expect the back of someone’s head to be sexy. Oooh, how wrong I’ve been. Or is this just me who thinks he even looks hot from behind? And he still has all of his clothes on! The broad shoulders do help.
I wasn’t going to post anything until Monday, but I saw this tumblr and here I am. Love these kinds of comments especially since it makes me feel less insane. Richard Armitage aside, that’s a great tumblr.
My oldest child is taking third year Spanish in college. Before this class, she had never taken any formal language classes and knew no one associated with the language program at her school. A couple of days ago she finally made a visit to the language lab where she logged into one of the computers and cruised around the school’s language site. Some external links were listed under helps, so she clicked on one of them. It was a YouTube channel designed to teach Spanish, and just for grins, she clicked on one of the videos and then sat open mouthed a minute later:
At about 1:20, there are two girls in black and white, and there is a sink behind them. Those two girls are my oldest and youngest children, and the sink is my kitchen sink, yet my daughter doesn’t know the owner of that YouTube channel nor does anyone she knows personally know the owner of the YouTube channel. She was naturally creeped out and called home to get some input. After SO and I finally realized she wasn’t pulling our legs, we sat stunned as well, and then all of us set about trying to figure out how the channel owner would have come to have this picture and use it to represent sisters. We speculated and ruled out all sorts of scenarios and then came to one that makes such sense.
The photo in the video was posted on my daughter’s Facebook page a couple of years ago, and she had labeled it “hermanita”, which is translated “sister” from Spanish. Although my daughter doesn’t have quite the tight security on her FB account that I would like, her account is fairly private and certainly this photo was private. Doesn’t matter. She posted a picture on her account where friends could see it. This implied a right for them to post it to their FB pages (whether that was a legal right or not), and apparently someone did take it and posted elsewhere. Once this was done, that person then extended a right to all of their friends, and if one of their friends decided to post it, the right was extended to all of their friends. Yes, I’m saying that if you put up a picture on Facebook, you can potentially lose control of it. Isn’t Facebook grand?
This can happen to any of us who are on Facebook or almost anywhere on the web. The protestations from Facebook about privacy and respecting copyright are immaterial. Yep, that’s right — they mean nothing. If it’s out on the web (and Facebook has a way of propagating information on the web the likes of which would make your head spin), the potential to be taken from you is enormous. Most people say to themselves, “Why would some stranger want my photos?” You may never know why.
I bring this post for those of you who are still enamored of Facebook but don’t realize the vulnerability it creates for you. Facebook is everywhere and gives others the ability to lift all sorts of things about you — the least of which are your personal photos — and again, it does not matter about your privacy settings. Well, unless you have no friends on Facebook which would defeat the purpose of the site. And I won’t even get into Facebook wanting to trademark the word “f*ce” and how invasive that may be. You can read about that here.
Obviously, what makes this case bizarre are the great odds of my daughter ever seeing herself this way, but it should beg a question of everyone: are there any photos of me, or anything else about me, somewhere I’m unaware of? Probably.
By the way, this is one of the reasons I will never post pictures of famous people in a family setting that the famous in question has not intentionally made public. I will not participate in the breaching of someone’s privacy. It is certainly not my place to do that with anyone’s photos — be they photos of the famous or not. Sadly, on occasion I have been sent what appear to be stalking pictures, and at one time I had a picture of what I’m pretty sure was a private photo of Richard Armitage’s family. That ran a chill up my back, and I couldn’t help but think of my own family. I’ll admit a wee part of me wanted to keep the photo. Thankfully, the better part of me, who lives by the Golden Rule, got rid of it. May the better part of me always dominate.
I told my daughter I was going to be posting this video and that I wanted to post some other pictures of her. She’s of the generation that expects to have their pictures and videos plastered everywhere without consent, but I’m of the generation that is still compelled to ask permission. And this should probably be a post just about her, but I’m not sure one blog piece would do justice to her. She has a lot of energy and is almost always smiling and laughing. It’s hard to get a picture of her when she’s not:
She is also larger than life but doesn’t realize it. Everyone who knows her can see it, and many of us think this photo captures it perfectly:
Update April 2018: my daughter is a college graduate with honors, speaks several languages, lives in NYC where she owns a business and is doing very well, is engaged to a fine young man, whom we like very much, and she finally made it to Machu Picchu. :D
P.S. I didn’t ask for permission to post this photo since it’s already posted on the web.
Armitage Day came and went, and I found myself at a loss for an appropriate blog piece to commemorate it. But it occurred to me yesterday that I gave Richard Armitage the perfect gift from me — a few days off from this blog. Taking off was made especially easy as my conscience was pricked by reading things like this. LOL! Notice the bold sentence. Third “paragraph” down if you’re not sure. Poor guy(s). And no, I have no need to instruct anyone on proper behavior toward Richard Armitage. It’s just that when I read something like that, or I see him duck his head when he hears, “women will chase you…,” I feel funny and wonder if anyone else feels a bit foolish. Maybe that’s a good sign?
Earlier today I was asking myself why I’m even keeping this blog up. Yeah, I’ve beaten this drum before about my conscience. Apparently, I’m really not as insane as I first feared, and the part of me that’s so cussed circumspect especially wants to take over after being inundated with the birthday gushing. I threw myself into the midst of that fangirling, and by Sunday night I was in a bit of a stupor from my tweeting. Come Monday I had run dry for the blog.
Have I made you feel sufficiently self-conscious yet? LOL! Well, no worries, ’cause I’m soon going to leave the self-flagellation behind.
Today, some inspiration for renewed gushing manifested in my email. A fan sent me one of her favorite private pictures of him taken a couple of years ago. Look at that face!
I love the candid shots. There is a freshness and sweetness to them that always makes it hard to look away. Richard Armitage seems to have such a pure smile, and that really does make me like the guy (even if he turns out to be a schmuck). See! I’m still a bit insane although not tempted to draw arrows on RA’s pictures yet. ;-) But if I were ever tempted to draw them on anyone’s pictures, it would be his. :D
As if this weren’t enough to put my addiction at full throttle, RA has sent another message to the troops:
Dear Friends,
I would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you for all the kind gifts which have been sent to me over the last few weeks, for my birthday; so many gifts, cards and emails of good wishes from all over the world. (Poland, Ukraine, Japan, Russia, Germany, Korea, Itlay, USA, Canada, Netherlands and all over the UK)
I will be so ‘well read’, drunk, fat, warm and sweet smelling thanks to your generosity.
I am particularly excited to let you know that the “Just Giving” donations to our four charities has reached an amazing £11,933! In addition to donations to Oxfam and Christchurch Earthquake appeal, which I find both thoughtful and moving.
I am afraid there may be some delay in remitting thank you letters and any requests for signing photos, as I am in New Zealand for the rest of the year, but am working on a system to remedy this.
So middle age has arrived and apparently ‘life now begins’. I look forward to the next chapter, there is nowhere I would rather be at this moment than exploring “Middle Earth” with my new family of Dwarves, Elves, Men, Wizard and Hobbit. What a gift to be here, in this place, at this time. I can’t wait to share it with everyone. I am a very fortunate man.
Man, that typing with thumbs is tough! No more references to the typo or we’ll revisit the apostrophe debacle. ;-) Also, I’m going to spare RA some more today by not waxing on about the topic of middle age. I will get to it later. Too good to pass up.
I would say what’s coming up next on this blog, but I’m learning I like flying by the seat of my pants, and a good thing since that’s what I’m forced to do these days.
edit: the photos coming up, are, well, let me put it this way: take your heart medicine. Oh, you don’t take heart medicine? you might after looking at these photos.
If you’ve read this blog for more than a few pieces, you know how rabid I am about fan videos, which I’m defining as videos set to music and starring the object of a fan’s attention — someone or something. They got me started on Richard Armitage, and my love for them has become so intense that I’m wondering when these things will gain much more notoriety than they currently enjoy. For now they are not really acknowledged much by the mainstream media, and a good part of the reason is the history of their illicit nature. In my search on the web, I found one piece from a mainstream media source discussing the significance of fan videos, and that was from 2007. Maybe there are a few more, but the key word would be few. However, at some point soon I think fan videos will have more formal recognition. So far for most people who don’t peruse videos sites and are over the age of 25, there has been no awareness these things exist, but that’s changing as more and more people (even your grandmother) are starting to surf YouTube.
Heck, SO’s almost 80 year old parents get on YouTube regularly, and my mother, who by the way, is considerably younger :D, also gets on YouTube. So if you’re 60 and you don’t ever get on YouTube? What planet are you on? ;-)
Actually, I’m assuming most reading this are the choir. So why did I even say that? Maybe there is one out there among you who has not ventured onto a video site for fear it’s just stuff like this:
and you got your fill of this kind of thing on “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” Oh, you’ve never seen that show? LUCKY YOU. Really wrestling here with the temptation to go on a rant about why I hated that show when it was on, but one rant a week is enough. The show is still on?! God help us.
Of course this is a cute video, and it’s understandable why it’s in the top ten all-time watched videos on YouTube, but c’mon, after you’ve watched it 300 times, you would think it would get old. FYI: a few weeks ago this video passed its four year anniversary, and I can see its lasting effect with the eventual publication of How to Pay For College: The Advantages of Being a Mischievous Teether in the Digital Age by Charles Davies-Carr. ;-)
Okay, where was I? Oh, yeah, fan videos. Well, if you’re new to them, and I’m assuming you’re a Richard Armitage fan since you’re reading this blog, there is only one place to go, and my friends, it’s not YouTube. No, it’s a little place on the web hosted by one of the most intriguing fans, Elvira Sweeney. Here are some things I know about Elvira. She is artistic, prolific, a bit perfectionistic, and definitely industrious. Oh, and she likes RA. :D He was the inspiration for what I now think of as the RA Fan Video Empire, or just The Empire. So what is this place? It’s called RAfanvids, and if you have never been there, oh my are you in for a treat. Now the only proviso I will give you is that you must prep the storage on your computer so you can download to your heart’s content when you get there. You’re not sure about this downloading? No, you’ve got to change that notion. You can’t really enjoy some of these videos without watching a download. YouTube, Vimeo, et al will not give you the quality of a 1080 vid. You can only get the real impact of it by downloading and watching on your system or possibly your tv monitor.
Take this video for example:
You can watch it and love the music and the clips, but you can’t get the full effect of this unless you download and watch. It’s the eyes. You almost fall into them. Can’t get that from watching on YouTube — even in full screen mode. Oh, it’s better than the little window, but not nearly as good as watching your own copy.
Or consider this one:
Want to really feel like that leather is within arm’s reach, download! And of course the eyes are also compelling. By the way this video was done as part of Elvira’s “Vidding on the Cheap” series for all those people who think making videos with an old Mac isn’t possible. Guess again.
This is one of my favorite montage videos, and for good reason. I really feel I’m in the room with RA and he’s looking at me when I watch the download:
This was the video that convinced me I needed to watch everything I could from a download copy. Once I got this one on my computer and started watching, I realized that I had missed so much on YouTube, and if a video is not in a large format, putting the player in full screen doesn’t really cut it either. So I downloaded this one and was blown away. I also realized something about Elvira. She can read people. Anyone who puts as much emphasis on people’s eyes and expressions is focused on reading them. I would love to know what she really thinks of RA other than just liking him so damn much. LOL!
And the next two you haven’t really seen unless you’ve watched a download and especially in 1080. You watch these like that, and you will never be satisified with them on YouTube again.
If you still don’t want to download, you can just watch the videos on that site, and there are quite a few that are not on YouTube. So check it out.
One more thing. If you go over to RAfanvids, you may notice something is absent. But no worries, ’cause Elvira’s got it covered over here. :D (note: the link is an archive page and not all pages linked within it are available).
See Diary Part 24 here, or to access all entries, hit “The Diary” tab above.
Entry — a day or so later, Fall 2008:
I’ve almost fully immersed myself in the Armitage Army forum, and I guess I didn’t realize until today that Richard Armitage communicated so intimately with his fans. Don’t know how I missed that, but I am loving his messages. This guy, if he’s for real, is a sweetheart. Then again, part of me wonders if he’s real. I wish I could just enjoy this without my bs detector getting in the way, but the cynic will not let me alone.
And my appetite has now been whet to read/listen to as many of his interviews as I can get my hands on. If I’m being manipulated by a publicist, I’m not sure I care. Yeah, I can ignore my bs detector ’cause this feels too good, and it helps that my gut is screaming Richard Armitage is genuine. Maybe I just really want to believe that. I honestly don’t know what to think, but maybe the cynic in me is being challenged, and I love that. I always love it when I’m met with someone who seems real, and ironically, Richard Armitage spends most of his time in public playing someone else. Yet there is something about him, the person, that makes me think he’s genuine. He’s got a kind of purity, and how I can think that after watching ‘Between the Sheets’ is beyond me. But his characters certainly have a thread of innocence, and he does too. I don’t think it’s immaturity. I’m not sure what it is, but he does effect a very intelligent but naive demeanor. If he’s having everyone on, man, he’s one of the greatest actors of all time.
I don’t know that I’ve ever run across a person who was both intelligent and naive so overtly except SO, and it was such a powerful combination in him that it fairly had a lot of the women on our college campus falling all over themselves for him. I remember cleaning out his car one time before we were really together, and he told me to get rid of all the junk, “Just toss all of it if you don’t mind.” Well, I did toss it, but I was so curious about a few of the envelopes with ornate script on them, that I opened some. I had never read anyone’s mail before that, and I felt so awful that I’ve never done it again. But I defend myself with the fact I was “a kid.” No, there really is no defense. I did it, and I wish I hadn’t. I read those notes from a few girls who were madly in love with SO, and not a one had he ever dated or really had much to do with them. But I resolved then never to be one of those gushy women even though we were already serious about each other, and I was already so far from gushy that I’m sure he would have laughed at that vow.
The net effect is that I was too aloof in our first days together because I had eavesdropped on something I never should have done and my self-consciousness kicked in. Wish I could take it all back. Wish I had never let my curiosity get the best of me, and mostly I wish I had not been focused on myself. It did some damage to my relationship with him, and for a long time he didn’t have a clue what was going on. Thankfully, I finally told him what I’d done, and as only he can do, he laughed and made a joke of it, and told me, “Don’t you know by now that I never cared for anyone but you?” He is so earnest that yes, I know it. I know he’s for real, and yet my early training with seeing how awful people can be still has me applying that jaundiced filter too much. I really do have to take my thoughts captive a lot when wondering where some people are coming from. I hate that I’m so distrustful, but the truth is that I am, and I wonder if the idea that to the pure all things are pure will ever describe me.
Later:
It seems Richard Armitage has already ceased his messages. I guess there was a problem. Damn! I don’t know what happened, but people are such a pain in the ass. No, women are such a pain in the ass. Yeah, men are too, but I can’t even get past all the shit women do to get to an indictment of the men. Why can’t people just enjoy something for what it is instead of nitpicking it to death. Damned selfishness! It causes so many of the world’s problems. Oh, well, that was fun while it lasted, and if I’m in denial about Richard Armitage and he’s not really a nice guy, I’d like to stay there. LOL!
Much Later:
Alright! Richard Armitage is going to be in the next season of Spooks. Yes!!
I really enjoyed that show when Matthew MacFadyen was in it, and then I hated how they wrote him out and haven’t watched it since. I guess I’ll have to break down and watch those episodes before this starts, and I don’t have much time! Maybe I should just skip it. Not sure, but I am really looking forward to Richard Armitage being in the show. He is so fantastic with character development that I can’t wait to see what happens. I just hope they keep him more than a season or a couple of shows. I know how they do these characters, and I hope he’s not a Lisa Faulkner. Oh, please don’t let him be a Lisa Faulkner. Surely, they won’t do that!
Present day:
When I read this comment by Richard Armitage, I was intrigued and wondered what it really meant:
I’m ten years behind, but I’m finally growing into myself now,’ he says.
Read the rest here. I think this is the fourth time I’ve linked to this interview, and I’ll probably link some more. Lots to chew on. :D
If there’s an audio of this interview, wouldn’t it be great to hear it! Wonder when Richard Armitage makes it really big if Allison Pearson would ever post such a thing — edited of course so that nothing uncomfortable is revealed. I’m a big fan of Allison’s and may have to actually write her a note about this. LOL! And no, I don’t agree with everything she’s ever said in an article, but I’ve agreed with a lot. I was so bummed when she left the Daily Mail and with such a downer of an exit, but then I realized she’s at the Telegraph. Yea!
And Allison, if you ever read this, I like your picture at the Telegraph, and I’m glad you’re there.
Did Pippa Middleton steal the show? I think she did. Yesterday, the would be queen’s sister got most of the attention at the Royal Wedding, and I think it was somewhat deserved. She was as spectacular as her sister and all her own. You would have to be dead not to have noticed her. Well, if you’ve got it flaunt it, and she did, but I don’t think she was trying to upstage her sister.
She was placed in a position that potentially could draw notice if you’re in a stunning gown with a great figure, great skin and have excellent carriage, and women who look at you want to be you, and I’m afraid to say what I think the men were thinking, and of course she appeared to be good with children:
But all of that wasn’t what sold me on Pippa. It was the smile:
I knew immediately she had a sense of humor. Perhaps she is a total ass (no pun intended) in person, but my gut says a resounding no! Whatever the case, that infectious smile makes me say, “I would love to meet her!”
And now a picture for the men who read this blog, which I figure is deserved after all of the fangirling of Richard Armitage that you’ve witnessed:
Of course I’m drawn to her hair in this picture. Lovely.
RAFrenzy 
