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It’s not every day you see the Associated Press use the words ‘good as hell’ let alone while describing a giant, orange floral cape Lizzo wore on the red carpet at the Grammys. Then again, maybe it could be every day with the way the AP has fallen.

We get it, it’s in quotes so someone else said it but to use that as the tweet?

Guys.

They only made things worse for Lizzo and her cape:

Lizzo looks “good as hell” in an orange floral cape on the #GRAMMYs red carpet. https://t.co/TisoAE2Ldv pic.twitter.com/cerMAuIVFs

— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) February 5, 2023

What was Lizzo thinking?

Entertainment reporters are gushing over @lizzo’s Grammys red carpet look…
Am I missing something? Not a fan. #GRAMMYs pic.twitter.com/E5hW46Acxd

— Stephanie Hamill (@STEPHMHAMILL) February 6, 2023

She looks like a Jim Henson creation before his son took over and sold everything to evil Disney. And you know what’s really bad is she probably paid a ton for it.

So much of it:

Am I the only one who sees uncanny resemblance? 😂 https://t.co/PGZeGP0WCL pic.twitter.com/tfxIZMXvpN

— Viva Frei (@thevivafrei) February 6, 2023

Or else Pizza is coming for YOU.

— Cincy Browncoat – You can’t take the sky from me (@cincy_browncoat) February 6, 2023

Something like that.

The new Whataburger uniforms are something

I’m getting heavy Grimace vibes when it’s up

— tracer (@tracer_120) February 6, 2023

If Grimace had been orange, yes.

Actual visualisation of the Pfizer clot

*snort*

— realdill (@govols2022) February 6, 2023

OMG, it does look like a giant nacho cheese Dorito.

🎶 Can you tell me how to get,
How to get to Sesame Street… 🎶

— Benjamin Gerdes (@benfgerdes) February 6, 2023

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Cartoonist Alison Bechdel, 62, is the author of three graphic memoirs, including Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, but she’s most widely known for cinema’s Bechdel test. To pass, a film has to feature at least two women – preferably named characters – talking to each other about something other than a man. The test originated in Dykes to Watch Out For (DTWOF), her landmark comic strip that launched in 1983 and ran for 25 years. DTWOF followed the politics and news of the times, providing a weekly lifeline for queer readers across the US. Now, 40 years on, the trials and triumphs of Bechdel’s tight-knit lesbian ensemble have been given a fresh lease of life in a new audio series, with a cast including Jane Lynch, Carrie Brownstein and Roxane Gay.

DTWOF started in the 1980s. Name one thing from that era that you’re glad to be shot of and another that you miss
I’m glad to be shot of Ronald Reagan, although he did sort of seep out into the next decade. I miss the sense of community – the very tight-knit subculture that I was able to come out into. I wouldn’t want to go back to that because it was a sign of how embattled we were. We had to form a separate culture, but it had a lot of consolations and was quite wonderful in many ways.

What made you decide to end the strip in 2008?
It was very consuming and I had other things I wanted to do. I wrote the strip until the end of the Bush administration, when I was just exhausted. Little did I know what was to come.

It’s an epic amount of time to spend with one group of characters. Did you find yourself wondering what they were up to afterwards?
I honestly didn’t think much about them because I was so relieved at that time to have my life open up to other things. But after Donald Trump became president, I did a few self-therapeutic episodes about how the characters were responding and, recently, I’ve been working on another project with them and that’s been really fun.

Which character do you most closely resemble?
When I began writing, I envisioned Mo as an avatar of myself, but I’ve become like her girlfriend, Sydney, the evil women’s studies professor, who’s a more jaded, more worldly character.

Were you apprehensive about transforming a comic strip into an audio series ?
I didn’t know what was going to happen. How do you turn a visual thing into an audio thing? But a wonderful playwright, Madeleine George, did the adaptation. I’m still amazed at how she managed to take so much of my original language.

Your first memoir, Fun Home, describes how your closeted father died by suspected suicide shortly after you came out at the age of 19. How big have the cultural changes in gay culture been since that time?
If you look at older gay people and then at the very young gay people, the change is quite marked. My generation made this generation possible but it’s pretty different from how we envisioned it.

In what way?
We were so attached to our identity as gay men or lesbians and it feels like that’s going to be a historical blip. If humanity even survives another 100 years, which I’m not so sure of, I think that there’s going to be a lot less attachment to sexual or even gender identity. I think it’s going to be much more fluid and we’ll be fine with it.

Have you ever considered switching pronouns?
I understand why people want to use “they”, and I could do that, but I’ve worked so hard to count as a “she”, I’m going to stick there.

Is it harder to be queer in America these days?
Even a few years ago I was saying: “Oh, it’s so hard to convince people how hostile the culture was towards us when we were young,” but now it’s gone off the rails. All these anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ bills that are being passed – it’s crazy. I don’t want to feed into the people who are sure there’s going to be a civil war. I could easily work up that anxiety, and sometimes in my worst moments I do. I also don’t want to take away the sense of urgency. We’ve got to be vigilant.

Growing up, your family was in the funeral home business. Did that give you a healthy attitude to mortality?
I felt grateful to have that exposure to death as a routine fact of life because most people don’t have that but I continue to grapple with my own mortality.

Did it influence your sense of humour?
We would joke about the funeral home – it was just part of our daily life – and that definitely shaped me.

We should talk about the Bechdel test…
If we must.

How do you feel about it these days?
It was a joke. I didn’t ever intend for it to be the real gauge it has become and it’s hard to keep talking about it over and over, but it’s kind of cool.

Is it dismaying that so many films continue to fail the test?
What’s really dismaying now is the way so many movies cynically try to take shortcuts and feature strong female characters – but they just have a veneer of strength and they’re still not fully developed characters.

You hear about writer’s block – have you ever experienced illustrator’s block?
I often go through phases of it. Ideally, I would draw every day, but I’ve got into bad patches where I’ve stopped and I start to lose the skill. It’s like any kind of manual dexterity – you lose it if you don’t practise it.

What gets you through?
I have little projects that I force myself to do, like keeping a daily visual diary.

In its original format, DTWOF was released weekly. In its audio incarnation, listeners can binge the entire series. Is there anything you binge on?
What I am watching is a YouTube show by this Dutchman [Martijn Doolaard] who brought two crumbling stone barns in the Italian Alps and restores it in real time. It’s so soothing, the antidote to all of the craziness that we’re living through. He releases episodes weekly, but I’m a year behind so I’m bingeing to catch up.

Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For is available on Audible

Cristiano Ronaldo’s club, Al-Nassr, have made an attempt to sign top Manchester United transfer target Andre Onana.

With United goalkeeper David de Gea’s future still uncertain following the expiry of his contract, the Red Devils have held talks with Inter Milan over signing Onana, who boss Erik ten Hag worked with while at former side Ajax. But as Mirror Football reported last Saturday, the 27-year-old Cameroonian has been deemed too expensive by United chiefs because of his £60million price tag.

Ten Hag only has limited funds to spend this summer before player sales, with nearly half of the anticipated £120million he has available being splurged on Chelsea midfielder Mason Mount, who underwent a medical on Monday. Cash-strapped Inter are keen to sell Onana, as they hope to finance a deal for Romelu Lukaku.

Their predicament has prompted Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr to enter the race, aiming to make Onana the latest high-profile player to move to Saudi Arabia this summer. The Saudi club have confirmed their interest and the goalkeeper’s representatives were notified, as first reported by Italian publication Calciomercato.

Al-Nassr signing Onana would see Ten Hag miss out on his first-choice target to replace De Gea, who remains in discussions with United over a new deal, but is edging closer to the exit door after 12 years.

However, despite the chance to be Ronaldo’s team-mate, Onana currently isn’t sure about a move to Saudi Arabia, having just enjoyed an outstanding season with the Nerazzurri.

Ronaldo and Ten Hag of course have history, as the pair fell out during the first half of last season which led to the Portuguese megastar swapping Manchester for the Saudi capital of Riyadh. In an infamous interview with Piers Morgan, days before the Red Devils took the decision to terminate his contract, Ronaldo claimed that Ten Hag and the United hierarchy were forcing him out.

Have your say! Should Manchester United splash out £60m on Andre Onana? Give us your verdict in the comments section.

“I don’t have respect for him because he doesn’t show respect for me,” the five-time Ballon d’Or winner added. “If you don’t have respect for me, I’m never gonna have respect for you.”

There’d be even more bad blood between the pair if Ronaldo was able to convince Onana to become his team-mate, although Ten Hag already has a backup plan – two in fact. Eintracht Frankfurt goalkeeper Kevin Trapp has emerged as a name on his shortlist, just like Feyenoord shot-stopper Justin Bjlow.

Both would be a lot cheaper to sign than Onana and, as of now, are more attainable.

It’s added in the aforementioned report that Red Devils officials recently met with their Inter counterparts in Ibiza, although they’re yet to lodge a formal offer due to the Serie A side’s £60m valuation.

Ten Hag faces a race against time to find his No.1 goalkeeper for the 2023-24 season, with United’s Premier League campaign getting underway on Monday, August 14 at home to Wolves.