My Little Friends

I can't remember how long ago it was when I first started to accumulate my collection of 'little friends'; it must be well over 7 years ago because I remember having quite a sizeable collection on the bedside table of my old house. I have neglected these friends quite a lot recently, left them sitting there on their pretty pink mat with no new friends to play with. This is probably a result of me getting older and not really receiving or delighting in receiving miniature creatures any more; in fact I can remember one of the last ones I received (it's one of the sitting ducks, I'm not sure which). It was christmas several years ago, we were on holiday and my parents had decided we wouldn't have any presents . My sister and I were gutted. On the way back from the airport however, my parents dropped some hints about presents under the tree; I was so excited. We got home, looked under the tree and there was the duck, they'd bought him at the airport. Ungrateful as I realise this sounds now I was even more gutted. Through time, the blue hedgehog appeared but it was a while before he joined the rest of my friends and I have no idea where he came from. But recently by friend came back from holiday and gave me a little turtle, which I delighted in. If you look carefully you can see her at the forefront of the photo.

If you'd have asked me a few years ago, I could have told you the name of every single animal you see in this photo. Now, I can't remember any of them but I can remember quite a lot about where they all come from. The teddy you see at the back, poking his head over the standing duck in an attempt to be seen by the camera was my first acquisition. Unfortunately, he has a broken arm. The snowcouple standing in the right upper corner smiling in a creepy sort of way used to have their own house, made out of a cardboard box, with plastic see-through windows and everything. I painted them myself. The locust (front right) is from the British Museum and was always destined to be worn on a necklace. Etc etc.

There's not much point to this post, but when I added Rica (as the new turtle is called) to the collection, I thought they were really cute but then started wondering if they were actually really creepy, like some perverted remembrance of a lonely childhood, or something. But I decided to post anyway.

Apologies

Sorry for the delay in posting - I have six or seven big ideas for posts and keep on being left with no time to write them. I might be able to get one up this evening... I suppose it's nice that I'm busy (I like being busy) enough not to have a spare moment, or maybe just surrounded in so many people doing nothing that I don't have a spare moment.

Whatever the reason, I miss writing and hope to have a ton of posts up soon xxx

Sporting Beauties + TimesOnline Redux

Last time I wrote about reading newspapers I probably came off as far more cultured. Nevertheless, last time I wrote about sporting beauties I probably came off as far less cultured. This time I just have to share this eye-opening and rather hilarious article, entitled Sex and the Olympic City:

Read it!
(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article4582421.ece)

Speaking of article titles, I was pretty impressed with this one but I am even more so by the actual SATC's titles. They're all very punny, relevent, and actually fit every single storyline in one way or another. For example the episode No Ifs, Ands or Butts is not only about Carrie giving up smoking for a man, but about the dealbreakers in the other characters' relationships. I wish I could be that clever; the titles I'm most proud of are 'judging a book by its cover', (10 points for originality there!) 'it's a feminist issue' (although the actual post turned into a great big mess) and 'not just a pretty face' (again, the content left a little to be desired).

Maybe I should just imitate the cool blogs such as gnarlitude aka sleep deprivation and stories of my bullshit youth (how COOL can a blog get???) and just use song lyrics my posts. Hang on, I dont know enough songs...

Pathetic Fallacy?

I know that 'pathetic fallacy' is not the literally correct term to describe what I am about to relate, but I've been running short on good post titles lately (more on that tomorrow, if I again leave writing so late that I can't take the photos I want to). What I'm getting at is a cycle I've noticed happening in my wardrobe. Generally I do stick to a quite neutral palette, with injections of colour in the form of pink, blue or loud accessories but this spring/summer, I've found that I've become more and more attracted to florals. Ever the style schizophrenic I have ignored the voices in my mind saying 'you have nothing which works with this!' 'nothing I tell you!' 'it's all a huge mistake!' and gone forth and purchased yellow dresses, bright pink skirts (both posted I think) and plenty of florals. In fact, at the beginning of August I actually started writing a post about the sudden arrival of flora within my wardrobe these past couple of months before realising I actually had several other flowered pieces which I had simply forgotten about, from previous summers. Plus, summer was basically over by the time I got round to it.

And then, as soon as the sun fades and I have to add a colourful cardigan over the colourful florals, I feel the need to pile up a million and one grey scarves, woolly jumpers, thick ribbed tights and a nice warm skirt. Hence buying a pair of grey cords in August. Soon I realise that 99% of my wardrobe consists of different shades of grey and I start craving red lipstick (to disguise the blueness), boots and coats. Flowers have never been farther from my mind.

So to try and recapture that summer spirit, even if it has to be via a sort of warped pathetic fallacy, I'm going to post my favourite summer photo from my holidays, which already feel like a distant memory.

i-Love i-Pod

Up until relatively recently, I was completely unaware of music, other than the piano piece I was currently learning. Don't mistake me; I was not a grade 8 virtuoso then nor am I now in fact going to claim to be a music guru but I do occasionally recognise songs I hear when I turn on the radio (a rare occurrence in itself) or in shops, even if I can't remember their names...

All this is a far cry from the girl who knew the lyrics to approximately 0.1% of one of her friends' repertoire.

Just over a year ago I got an i-Pod. To start with, all of my music was from my father's iTunes (although shamefully pre-this-millenium music still features heavily on my underaged iPod) but then a couple of CDs from friends started to sneak in and *gasp* one or maybe two of my own CDs, gifts of course. To this day I have never bought a single CD, although I did by myself a few tapes a long time ago. Then my DJ cousin lent me a ton of music and all of a sudden I was beginning to realise... I love music! Music is great! How had I lived with nothing more than musical soundtracks for my whole life! Music is beautiful!

I have come to love my i-Pod very dearly. The screen was scratched and the wheelie button stained within days of getting it but that hasn't decreased its usage one bit. I will readily admit that I do not solely use my i-Pod for music, with only about half of the 8Gb filled. I love listening to Agatha Christie on there, practising my French (who knew that 'shuffle' was 'mix de morceaux'?) and playing the 'jeux'. Today, whilst listening to They Do It With Mirrors after a particularly tiring shopping sesh - I think I'm getting old, shopping has become so tiring recently - I won Solitaire for the very first time.


(It's hard to make out, but that's a photo of the screen when you win Solitaire - gagne!)

PS since this post has turned out as basically an ode to i-Pods, which although nice wasn't particularly on my list of things to write about, I might as well include a couple of pictures from my sight-seeing adventures at the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker St. Not exactly conventional tourist pics. I hope you can make the writing out on my shit camera phone, if not I can transcribe...

Hello @ 23:02

When I first started writing these 'off to bed posts' as they are so aptly tagged, I assumed that they would become a regular Sunday feature; a distinctive part of this blog. I soon realised that this would not be the case when I started to forget that it was Sunday, then think it was Saturday, then go on holiday and throw the whole post-a-day routine out of the window. So I thought today when getting home at 11 o'clock, having been out of the house for over 12 hours sight-seeing (yes, sight-seeing) and remembering that I was trying to write everyday, what the heck, I might as well bash out an off to bed post.

-Unfortunately I don't feel very sleepy. Today I read an article in US Elle about this and how many people believe that they suffer from insomnia when really they're just not preparing for sleep right; irregular sleeping patterns, screen time before bedtime, coffee and caffiene throughout the day, nightcaps etc etc are all common in peoples lifestyles and the sort of things which you'd never allow a child who couldn't sleep to do. I don't suffer from not being able to sleep AT ALL but it nevertheless made me think that maybe I should cut down on my borderline obsessive tea drinking. It's a recent revelation for me and can't be good for my teeth. In fact today I was feeling proud of myself for not having had a cup of tea, before remembering the samples I had tried in Whittards. That doesn't count does it?

-Speaking of today's exploits, one of my friends had a tourist staying with her so I agreed to come on a day of sight-seeing. At first I was reluctant, primarily because touristy stuff costs so much but also because it seems sort of odd to go sight-seeing in the city you've lived in all of your life. However I ended up having a great time and was planning on writing all about it but it's a little late for a 'pictures post' i.e. a fully-fledged, properly written WITH pictures piece of writing. I'm a perfectionist, what can I say??

-In the summer I always read more books than usual. Because of this, they often blend into one big blur of books, some which I remember that I enjoyed and others that I didn't. One book that I have read this summer had a quote which absolutely stuck in my mind for ages after and I think resonates even more because currently everybody is making so many plans for NEXT summer and frankly it's dizzyingly... dizzying? I know that the weather makes it not feel like summer but it's crazy how much pressure there is to have the best time possible.

“Sometimes … I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present at all.”

The Blogosphere

Today I thought a little about the blogosphere. I realised I hadn't been reading much of the big guns recently, so I decided to pay a visit to Go Fug Yourself, The Sartorialist and Bag Snob. On the first website, I found this:

I immediately e-mailed the link to Winona of Daddy Likey since it instantly reminded me of her (another example of the blogosphere) Chocha features.

When I visited the other two websites, I found myself surprised on two separate occasions by exactly how big they really are. These people have gone from bloggers to blogger-celebrities! On the Sartorialist's site, it was reading about how a Hollywood star (who admittedly I'd never heard of) loved his blog and promptly seeing a photo of this guy who I'd definitely heard of. A couple of posts down was a photo of the Sart in a GAP Ad: Scot Schuman, photographer/blogger. On the Bag Snob I read this. It's a little bit mind-boggling to think that those who jumped onto the blogosphere a couple of years early and stayed committed could get to this level of success, although I suppose it's the same with all things - it's about getting in early.

Anyway, to complete this story/musing/pondering/whatever we need to go full circle; back to my e-mail to Daddy Likey. To do this I had to check into my blog's email, which I occasionally do. Normally the only mail I get is requests from upstarting fashion websites or businesses running along a similar vein requesting some sort of sponsered/non-sponsered review. Unless it's obviously spam (which gmail mostly filters) I reply politely telling them thank-you and I'll check out the website in a couple of days... shamefully I hardly ever get round to it. I've never taken these e-mails as a sign of recognition; I assume they just did a quick google search for blogs which contain relevant keywords, or go through a bigger blog's link list. But when today I got this e-mail:

Miss angelina

show details 1:37 PM (6 hours ago)

Reply

My dear, I am miss Angelina from Asmara, Eritrea, single and 19 years old girl. After going through your information i copied out only your email address and i made up my mind to contact you for long term relationship and for you to be my financial and investment manager because you are my choice of trust.

After you reply this letter and agree for long term relationship and to be my financial and investment manager, I will email you all information concerning me and all the reason why i have chosen you to be my investment and financial manager. Reply me through my private email address: Angelinaadams777@hotmail.com Only

I am waiting for your reply,

Miss Angelina

That's when I knew that I was beginning to follow the same path as Scott, Tina and Kelly.

Picture Perfect

The first few days of my holiday, my head was bursting with ideas to write down; of stories and of course blog posts (eventually I stopped thinking completely... well that's what holidays are about isn't it? And now it's actually an effort to write again but anyway) but unfortunately I forgot to bring along my newly acquired Moleskine notebook. As well as my cream trousers, but that's not really relevant. Anyway, fortunately I was not in charge of remembering my camera and so was able to document in pictures most of what I wanted to remember.

Last time I went to Turkey, it was winter and although not as cold as an English summer, it was definitely not bikini weather so it was a far more cultural visit, which I definitely hope to write about at some point. I was hoping for this visit to be in a similar vein, but the heat managed to render the majority of activities impossible, excepting eating, drinking, reading and sitting in the shade trying to get a sort of tan.

Even so, I still managed to find clothes that delighted me amongst the old stock of my aunt's boutique (and which I have nowhere to wear... more on that another time). It was of course great to experience such alien cultures to my one (very different from cultural naturally), ranging from the tacky exclusivity of the over-priced world of surf clubs to small Muslim cafes and stalls selling fruit off the motorway. One thing that really stuck out though, which I immediately wanted to capture and share was the beauty of the colours of the buildings everywhere I went in Turkey. A few years ago, they were uniformly greyish brownish as with many other countries around the world, but then the government started to actively encourage people to paint their houses. The result is something which I've only really seen before in Tim Burton or similarly styled movies.



Now I'm back in dreary England away from the colourful houses and it's time to get writing again.

Normal Service Shall Resume Shortly

Hello, I'm back! Quite a civilised hour actually, far better than I imagined but still too late to write out the returning post I was hoping to. So I'm just checking in to say hello...

Thanks to those of you who commented whilst I was away, it was fun to read on my return. I suppose the deflated number of comments is due to ME not commenting - I better get reading!

xxx

Beauteous Mystery

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I have a real thing for mysteries. I know they're not particularly mentally challenging, high-brow etc, but more than anything else on TV I enjoy a good episode of CSI or House. I can devour Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie and well-written modern mysteries such as The Oxford Murders in the matter of a day. Long travel journeys always require an Agatha Christie murder mystery on my i-Pod and I delight in the beautiful costumes in old-school murder mysteries such as the star-cast adaptation of Death on the Nile or Gosford Park. I don't know exactly what it is which appeals to me so much; it must be the cocktail of secret and mystery, beautiful people and clothes (you know it's so much more tragic when a beautiful young girl dies in a beautiful dress), the eerie low-light settings and haunting stories which rarely fail to surprise.

However there's always a little regret after finishing a great mystery; of course you can rewatch/read/listen again (which I normally do) to pick up on the clues you originally missed but there will never be that unknown answer for which you race through the mystery to discover and that final surprise. That's why when I discovered the 'powerful drama series' Cape Wrath (known as Meadowlands in America) in the 4oD archives and found myself engrossed through the 78 minutes which make up the first episode, I was delighted and eager to start watcching the second episode, but I didn't. Instead I have been restricting myself to one episode a day and am both dreading and looking forward to finding out the ending of the 7th episode.

It's a fantastic mystery; the acting is superb and it has all of the other elements I mentioned which I think create a 'beauteous mystery'. And like all good mysteries, it raises questions which probably won't be answered, and does get the watcher thinking. For instance, there is a character called Jezebel:

On the Channel4 Cape Wrath microsite (which is where all these images are from), the above picture is labelled 'Beauty Incarnate'. Jezebel is seen in Meadowlands as the most beautiful resident, but her mother says that she is only beautiful as long as people say she is. In this alternate world, Jezebel is seen as the epitome of beauty and that in itself is an interesting thought, of how society creates our perceptions of beauty.


It's just a shame there isn't a second series.