Category: Life in General

Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.

We went for a drink at this place. At 11.30 on Fridays they shower you with rose petals from a balcony. The whole place is decorated like some kind of baroque stage set from a Fellini film. In fact the whole place is like a Fellini film. They don’t allow cameras inside, but I took some photos on Marcos’ phone. Instagram photos look amazing on the screen of the iphone 3, but they don’t always look so wonderful on the computer.

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery

I haven’t posted here for a while because life has overtaken me a little, and I’ve been dashing from place to place. I’m in Palma de Mallorca right now visiting Marcos’ family, with a permanent move to London on the cards for the end of the month (it can’t come too soon). I’ve got a backlog of photos to work through.

This & That

I haven’t updated in a while. There’s a backlog running. I’ve just been busy working all hours and doing university work. I’ve seen quite a few films recently tho.

This & That

I haven’t updated here in about a month. Not a great deal has happened. I worked at the museum a fair bit. I got a nasty bout of sinusitis & tonsillitis combined and was walking round with a giant swollen hamster face for about 4 days (bigger on one side too-joy!). I still feel a bit bleurgh, but hopefully that should go away.

That cat’s something I can’t explain

Charity shop haul (+ “helpful” cat)

Tartan fabric, grey wool skirt, purple dress, floral dress, knitting pattern book, pattern drafting books, Lux the Poet (excellent book btw), 70s girls comics annual for zine purposes, London Review of Books personals collection (“Animal in bed. Possibly a gnu.”)

For the Loneliness You Foster, I Suggest Paul Auster

I’m not doing the book review thing anymore, I lost track. When I added it up, I realised that I read at least 3 books a week (fast reader + a lot of time on trains), so that’s over 150 book reviews in a year. Writing that many book reviews doesn’t really appeal, so I’ll just mention any books that piqued my interest. Recently I’ve been reading the New York Trilogy by Paul Auster, the sort of thing I like a lot and wondered why I hadn’t got round to reading it before. I think it’s what they were going for in I Heart Huckabees and failed to do. I hate that film. (But I love people messing around with the form of detective stories). I’ve also been re-reading all my Diana Wynne Jones books, for obvious reasons.

Anniversaire de Victoire

On Saturday I went to Brighton for Vicky’s birthday. When I arrived at her flat, she had a full birthday tea laid out with all kinds of treats and drinks, and a red velvet cake that looked like a giant cupcake. Everyone should do that for their birthday, it was so much fun

Et Tu Moogie?

Last night I went to Moogie Wonderland. It was Ides of March themed this time, and I made them some stuff.

This is a projection on the life of Julius Caesar made with cardboard and chromakey. It’s clunky as hell, and there’s no way I’ll use it for uni, but I got it done in time for the event, and that’s what matters in this instance. (Also the audience is drunk people, and they’re not known for their attentiveness or attention to detail). My main beef with it is there’s too much text (it was the only way I could think of to get the story across when I didn’t have time to do more sophisticated animation) and most of the silhouettes are too basic. I’m going to remake it, with much better compositions and just generally at a higher, more sophisticated level.

Caesar ‘ad some jam for tea

I haven’t updated this for a little while, and I’ve built up a backlog of things to write about

Things I need to write about:
Brighton Zinefest (I’ve got a whole heap of photos to sort out)
Typical Grrls II
University Work
Oliver Postgate Book
I’ve also got a whole load of films I need to scan.

Typical Grrls v1

So last Thursday me & Tukru had our first clubnight. All-female playlist, free zine, free cake. It wasn’t very busy, as expected for a first night that we hadn’t had a great deal of time to prepare for. Some art students came, they seemed to enjoy themselves and certainly spent a lot at the bar, which covered our costs. About 11 it got really quiet, and the owner was tired so she decided to close early for the first one. We went home, I was feeling a bit disappointed. It turned out the next day that a whole load of people we knew came along about half 11, but of course the place was closed. Ah well. Next time. We’ve got a month to promote it as well.

Meow, meow, meow

Me & my ex-boyfriend had a cat. He was a stray who decided to move into my friends’ house, and we ended up taking him. We had him for two years as a girl named Mia, until the vet said “you do know your cat is a neutered male, right?” so he reverted to his original name of Meow. As cats go, he was pretty good. Very affectionate, but had somehow missed out on the basic training programme for the cat lifestyle, and so was always getting himself into scrapes like getting his claws stuck in the sofa and not knowing what to do. Here he is hypnotising himself with one of those glitter lamps. Unfortunately he had to be put down the day before New Year’s Eve, because he was old and ill and had lost the use of his legs and couldn’t eat anymore. Goodbye Meow.

Stuff I’d like to do before I’m 30

So here’s my first entry of 2011. It’d better treat me well (or else, you hear that 2011?).

On Weds I turn 26. This is probably quite old. Here’s some stuff I’d like to do before I’m 30.

Fotoautomat

There was a b&w photobooth round the corner from my hotel in Vienna that was €2 a pop. I took a strip most days to document what I’d been doing . I also had some with Delal, and some of me holding up signs, but I’ve cut them up for zine use now, and I can’t find what I did with the photo of the whole strips.

Notebook

When I was 17 or so I used to carry this notebook around in my bag to jot stuff down in. In boring moments in the pub, friends used to draw in it too. I managed to lose the insides (I’ve still got a few pages somewhere, but I haven’t seen then in a while, I’m sure I’ll uncover them when I return to Brighton and unpack my stuff). You can see where other people have scribbled stuff on the cover too, and polaroid stickers got stuck on, and then fell off where the material was so flimsy. Those polaroid izone stickers were a bit rubbish really. I scanned the covers a while ago, and forgot about it, and just noticed them on my flickr.

Hats & Hamming it up

The night before I went to Austria I hung out with some friends to drink beer and yell out the answers to quiz shows. I do enjoy a good bit of trivia. Some hats made an outing, and I took some hammily posed photos. I also got really indignant about the continuing existence of Roger Waters, even though he’s not quite in the Bono league for me.

I spent the summer wasting

Yesterday I went round Scott’s to play Scrabble with him & Matt. At the beginning of the game I got loads of good letters and managed words like exude. At the end I had nothing but Os and Is and resorted to crappy words like nut. We ate a lot of chili crisps. Scott won the Scrabble.

My Temporary Room

I’m spending the summer with my mum in my dead end hometown inbetween a spate of working in Austria, before I return to Brighton the end of September. None of the furniture is mine, but the wall colour is the same as when I painted it about 10 years ago. The rest of my stuff, particularly my mountain of records, dvds and books is packed up in a storage unit in Brighton for my return.

Pussies Galore

My mum’s got 2 kittens now, about 12 weeks old. She’s had them for about 2 weeks now, so they’re still getting used to things.

Darling Don’t You Go and Cut Yr Hair

I helped my friend Tukru make herself blue. She cut the fringe, and I trimmed the rest of her hair and bleached slices in, and dyed them blue. Most of the blue is in the underneath layers of her hair, so she doesn’t get in trouble at work.

Dangerous girls to watch out for

I went with Tukru & some other friends to watch Best Coast the other night. The band were great, but the drinks prices were awful (cheapest drink was £4). They did have a b&w photobooth in the garden of the venue tho. B&w ones are a rarity in the UK now, most places have those digital ones now instead, which have a nasty tendency to make you look really spotty with a sort of grey tinge.

Out & About

My friend Chloe came down from Glasgow on Weds, and we had a drink with 3 of her friends who used to live in London, but now live in Brighton. It was nice to find 3 more of my kind of ladies in Brighton. Jenna runs an alternative 80s night that I’ve been meaning to go to for a while, so that’s where I’m going tonight with Vicky. Unfortunately I’ve got to go into work this evening to hand out certificates to kids, but at least I’m free after that.

Whoopdedo

Goodbye £3 (astoundingly heavy) commie amp. You have infuriated me/worried me with your dodgy electrics for the last time. Hello nice reliable amp, courtesy of GAK’s extremely generous ex-display discount.

Seagull drama

When I came home from work there was a crowd of people outside my front door. There was a woman holding a seagull chick that had fallen down from the nest on the chimney pots. The chick was in the big fat gormless stage where the parents are fed up of feeding it, but it’s not ready to fly yet. There was really no way of putting it back up on the chimney pot, so I let the woman in and put the bird on the piece of flat roof that projects out of the window on our landing, safely out of the way of cats and foxes. In case he was going to hang around a while, I named the bird Spot, after his feathers.

To hypnodomatio mou

I got into the art MA, so at the end of the month I’m moving out of here, putting my stuff in storage and spending the summer bumming round my mum’s to save money (with a quick jaunt out to work for a week in Vienna). I thought I’d take some pictures, seeing as how the room is pretty tidy, as I had to show my possible replacements round. In many ways it’s an amazing room, but the total lack of vertical space and storage space can be a real pain in the arse. Excuse the slightly fuzzy photos, my compact camera is old and decrepit and doesn’t focus like it used to.

Politics

I used my postal vote today- I’m going to be away from home on polling day. I didn’t get to vote in the 2005 election, because of a registration mix-up, so I made sure to get it all done way in advance this time. It’s nice to see that the candidates in my area for the three big parties are all women. Caroline Lucas has a fairly good chance of getting in in Brighton, she’s the leader of the party, and they’re very popular locally. If she wins, she’ll be the first Green party MP. If she weren’t on the list, I’d go for the Lib Dems. That’s who I’ve voted for every other time. I have no idea who will win the election. I hope it isn’t smug orange plastic-faced Cameron.

Tea & Sympathy

Earlier today me & Vicky planned to go to an Alice Tea Party that was advertised in a vintage clothes shop. We dressed up Alice style, her in a grey dress with a bow and white tights with black ballet shoes, and me with a chequred skirt, silver and black stripy jumper, and silver ballet shoes. We got there and the “tea party” turned out to be a shop assistant on a small table with some styrofoam cups of tea. Very disappointing

Birthday Haul

I finally have all my birthday presents, after ooh, 2 weeks. Thanks Royal Mail.

Snowcake

I was stuck at home today because of the snow. I wish I’d had multi-coloured sprinkles for this, the pink ones kind of look like blood.

Lady into fox

I’m off work with a stomach bug today, I’ve been under the weather all this week. This morning I read Lady into Fox by David Garnett. He’s one of the Bloomsbury set who isn’t really famous (apart from the indignity of having a less popular Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on one of his books). The book was brilliant, about a bourgeois 1880s country couple and their life after the wife suddenly turns into a fox.

Right now I’m doing lots of laundry, writing about Roman emperors, and working out what bland food I can have for lunch.

Customer Service

My cousin is working temporarily in Crawley, a town which exists solely for servicing Gatwick Airport, and every day he is confronted with a new bizarre sight outside the train station. The best one this week was two dwarves slapping each other. He popped into Sainsbury’s and bought a jacket potato and pack of Garibaldis (those biscuits with raisins in which look like squashed flies) for lunch. The man at the counter asked him “Are you going to have a BBQ today then, sir” perfectly seriously. He thinks Crawley might be directed by David Lynch. I like the idea of a biscuit bbq.

Lashings of ginger beer

I’ve been in Medway this weekend, I’m staying at my mum’s, but she’s not there. My auntie went into hospital to have her cochlear implant done, and her daughter is away on her long pre-booked holiday, so my mum’s gone to pick her up from hospital and look after her for a few days until her sense of balance returns.

Sue Rydering

So on Saturday I went to the Sue Ryder hospice sale in Oxfordshire whilst Chris was at work, a treasure trove as always.

Charity Shopping with Tukru

On Sat I went down Rochester with Tukru to do some charity shopping. She got Ike & Tina Turner and Human League records, a unicorn colouring book for zine purposes (she’s a big unicorn fan) and I convinced her to get some Agatha Christie books.

Pancakes!

The 24th was Pancake Day here in the UK. You traditionally make pancakes to use up all your indulgent bits before Lent. I’m not at all religious, and I don’t give anything up for Lent, but I always make pancakes.

New Hair

I added some black streaks to my hair, because I thought that the solid pink ( a base of atomic pink, made a bit redder with a mix of la riche rubine + flamingo pink) was making me look peaky. It also handily disguised my rapidly growing roots. I’m pleased with it.