Thursday 30 April 2009

You know its summer when you want to go out in the garden and read "Alice In Wonderland"
(also is it weird that I know all the words to the Jabberwocky)

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream
Lingering in the golden gleam
Life, what is it but a dream?

Over/Under Rated This Week


OVERRATED

Andy Warhol :
While I partial to the odd colourful screen print of Elvis and of course I'm grateful to him for getting his wallet out to pay for the Velvet Underground's studio time, Warhol's body of work, irrespective of it carefully considered intentions, is largely complete and utter pap, Pap. Still revered as a visionary and with his work remaining highly collectible, Andy's 15 minutes of fame have lasted nearly 50 years. Johns and Lichenstein would be screwing.

Champagne:
Why at special occasions, such as birthdays or a wedding, does some bright spark decide that every ones glasses should be charged with champagne? I know of no-one, no-one, who would ever, ever, order a glass of the bubbly stuff from any bar given any other choice, at any time, so why wheel it out now? Guaranteed to ruin any social event you drink it at and give you an eye watering hangover it isn't our idea of decedent fun whatsoever. Non Merci madame. Ou et le vin.

UNDERRATED

Steven Seagal:
Actor, producer, writer, director, singer-songwriter, 7th-dan black belt in aikido, owner of fantastic hair, animal rights activist and supposedly the reincarnation of a Tibetan Buddhist lama, or tulku, Seagal is a BEAST. Currently flogging his own energy drink cleverly named Steven Seagal's Lightening Bolt, along with working as the deputy sheriff of Jefferson Pariah, Louisiana, Seagal's thousand yard stare and willingness to wear funny oriental jackets makes him a fully fledged alternative fashion icon.

Late night TV:
If you can sleep and you're really tired, zone out TV will probably feature an American sheriff and or Ross Kemp. Not Kirsty Warker. Newsnight isn't really, low-effort, veg-out TV is it now? Whereas, perpetual re-runs of the 36 episodes of the World's Wildest Police Videos with a former Sheriff most certainly is. Nothing quite soothes a tired brain like bizarre traffic violations and horrific car chases.

Monday 27 April 2009

Because even the Beatles loved a bit of air guitaring

The one in which I decide my look

Francoise Hardy, the French Sixties songstress and pretty much my hero (this week), she manages to project an image that is beyond sexy without ever being pictured on all fours daubed in fake tan; she was hardly ever seen out of a roll-neck jumper. So this winter, I cant believe I'm planning this when summer has not yet graced our shores, I am only going to buy something that is black, leather or could be seen as horse riding apparel eg. jodhpurs and riding boots. I'm thinking Francoise Hardy crossed with Astrid Kirchherr, the photographer of the "savage" Beatles, a woman who was rarely seen out of a ebony outfit. Is the look for me ...

Being a sickly child I often stay at home sipping chicken soup while I watch a film and I have decided that there's something about the way women shop in films that's really pukey it has a dream like quality (Clueless excluded, of course), or perhaps I just can't identify with them because I shop in a cold and calculated way. Usually I know what sort of thing I want and can dash around a shop floor like the Terminator closing in on his prey. Unless it's a vintage shop, in which case I always end up asking them to turn the music down and emerge looking like 1969 threw up on me.

I have got to the age where I have decided to stop shopping in budget high street stores and invest in key items that will last the test in time, so I think it is important to decide on a style and become an efficient shopper. Oh my mother will be pleased to hear that as she will never again have to console me whenever she scours though the fleshly laundered clothes to find my favourite cheap dress shrunken, ripped or ruined. Oxfam is now going to be stocked full of my old clothes the "old" me, well you have to help charities. Bring on Six form and my goth tendencies x

Tuesday 21 April 2009

Prepare for the Beauty


Over/Under Rated


Over Rated

Food culture:
Everybody enjoys a spot of fine dining once in a while, but there has to be a point at which a line must be drawn. With television schedules and magazines stuffed with celebrity chefs and columnists spouting on about truffle oil, fennel, micro herbs, organic hand-reared chickens, jus of this, reductions of that. My head is spinning and I've had my fill. Stuffed.

U2:
I'll admit even I cant resist a bit of air drumming whenever I hear Sunday bloody Sunday, but that is it. Hanging around music mega stores and arenas well, well, past their career bedtime am i the only one to think that, album after album, We've heard it all before? Maybe Bono et al's post Joshua Tree output is like a turgid dog whistle that only I can hear. And don't start me on Bono, oh no. Take those shite sunglasses off Mother Theresa.


Under Rated

Ten pin bowling:
Massive in the early 90s due to a load of Mega bowls ect. suddenly deciding to set up shop in Britain, for some reason its popularity has now waned. Currently only the preserve of ironic fashion types posing at overpriced boutique alleys and underage kind who can actually get served at the lanes' bar at the retail park, bowling if far too much fun to be overlooked anymore. The essential ball sport for the lazy, unfit, or inebriated, ten-pin bowling should be like our national sport. Striiiiiiiike!

Taxidermy:
I know lots of people, vegan or not, take great offence when confronted by the art of stuffed animals, but for me they still have a "how did they do that?" childhood mystique. And how can you not be hyped by seeing a black bear on his hind legs with a salmon in his gob standing to attention by your front door every time you go out to work/school? That was a joke. He'd never have a salmon in his Mouth, it'd be a eagle. Taxidermy is amazing.

Wednesday 15 April 2009

A Day In The Life


I read the news today oh, boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well, i just had to laugh
I saw the photograph
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn't notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They'd seen his face before
Nobody was really sure if he was from the house of lords

I saw a film today oh, boy
The english army had just won the war
A crowd of people turned away
But i just had to look
Having read the book
I love to turn you on.

Woke up, got out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up, i noticed i was late
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
Somebody spoke and i went into a dream
Ah

I read the news today oh, boy
Four thousand holes in blackburn, lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the albert hall
I'd love to turn you on

Friday 10 April 2009

He met Marmalade down in old Moulin Rouge


I am saving up to run away to New york, Paris even London. I want to leave home and enter a Bohemian world shown in films and read in books. I don't want to work in an office or do something mediocre with my life. Nobody wants to be on their death bed wondering where their dreams went, I want to be like Casanova a randy old man recalling all his conquests. Well I would like to do at least one outrageous thing in my life, weather it being running away to Paris and falling in love with a penniless sitar player and doing the can can in the Moulin Rouge...

As you can tell I fell asleep while I watched the Moulin Rouge yesterday and yes it has now accidentally entered my sub conscious and now all I can think about is "I wonder what absinthe tastes like" and "why the hell cant Toulouse remember the most important line in the whole film" these important questions and many more are whizzing around my head as I sit here. I get to engrossed in films, I get obsessed. I love them, their beautiful pictures, dashing
hero's, ravishing leading ladies and vile villains, all entice you to enter their strange Bohemian world and I am easily led.


Photography is truth. The cinema is truth twenty-four times per second. Jean-Luc Godard

The world of "Bohemian" interests me because I want to be a writer, who lives and acts free of regard for conventional rules and practices. I want to be surrounded by artists sipping vodka and dripping paint onto a raw canvas.

I cant believe I just typed that, I sound like a balding middle aged art critic who quotes Picasso as "overrated" and thinks that the infant down the road who got a marker pen that wrote "this place is shit" on a road sign is a "genius" who is "rebelling against the system." I think that's the other side to my character who only gets out when I reach for the thesaurus. Anyway all this mindless rambling aside I think I just what to escape this Victorian village I live in and only return when I suddenly have a urge to go into Laura Ashley and buy a pair of curtains. Oh domestic bliss x

Saturday 4 April 2009