Cut Out The Stars

Finding a Job in London: Part II

2011-12-17T05:24:00.000+11:00

I once rambled about the difficulties of finding a job in London. So many months on, the scene hasn’t changed. I have changed though, in the sense that I’m now a beaten down, sorrowful and ego-less version of myself.

That’s what three weeks of unemployment did to me. And I know that in this day and economic climate, three weeks is nothing. A drop in a pan that is crowded with fresh-faced graduates and seasoned professionals alike.

While endlessly refreshing Twitter – I mean Guardian jobs - I commented to my housemate (equal parts applying for post-doctoral fellowships and procrastinating) that it was apparently the worst unemployment in the UK since WWII. I had taken great comfort in this fact, and used it to counteract my mamma’s suggestion that I walk door-to-door offering my CV (I’m looking for a job in media or publishing mum. Not a summer scooping icecream cones. And besides, it’s not my fault, it’s the worst unemployment levels since WWII. She correctly told me I was a lazy sot).

Housemate, in his fearfully intellectual way, said that my shiny little fact just wasn’t true. That we can’t measure unemployment so simply. That these days most people will spend a certain amount of their lives unemployed, added up over a career, while job hunting or something else. That in WWII time, people mostly worked one job for 70 years, dying with their hands on the tiller or whatever. He said a whole lot of other things too, but I mostly tuned them out, preferring to cling to my little fact (quoted from a friend, and apparently sourced from The Independent) because it justified my Kardashian-watching, Twitter-refreshing, icecream-for-breakfast existence while being one of those ‘unemployed’.

I did not deal well with the silent rejection from numerous job applications. I dealt slightly better with politely worded rejection, as it at least indicated that my CVs weren’t covered in anthrax.
I was offered a few temp roles in my three weeks of circling the drain. I let them go, as I was determined to hang in there for the proper job. The real job. The one that would get me some experience in London, preparing me for the kind of stellar job that would be so fabulous I wouldn’t mind the fact that I was back in Australia, my visa at an end.

But?
Nada.
Nothing.

As I watched my pounds dribble into pence, I decided I’d take the next role offered, no matter if it was for the most boring company. Which is what I have pretty much done. I am in a PA role in a financial company in Canary Wharf-ish area. And I have found out what is second worse to being unemployed.

It’s being underemployed.

Here I am with my smug degree. I’ve studied hard, and worked hard. I know that I’m quick, learn new systems easily, and have a whole bunch of creative energy that I’m dying to put into some kind of collaborative team effort. I get a kick out of doing a job well. Out of sending ideas out there to become a reality. Of pushing deadlines, and juggling commitments. Of being utilised. Of having my opinion count for something.

Instead, I am currently babysitting someone else’s Outlook calendar. I manage meeting requests. I take coffee orders. I bind things and I print things. I get lunch for those who are in back-to-back meetings from 8 am til 6 pm. I arrive at 9 and am ready to leave by 11, but wait until 5. I feel like I do so little that I don’t deserve to take home the hourly rate that I do.

I hate it. I hate coming home and answering the ‘How was your day?’ question with ‘Meh, nothing.’
I hate it because I realised I am not content with being underemployed, and also that it appears that I am actually kind of a job-snob.

Scene: Trendy gallery in Old Street, clutching cans of Red Stripe.
New interesting people that are friends of my friend (the kind that either live in lofts, or know models and photographers that live in lofts and regularly hang out there): ‘So, what do you do?’
Me: ‘Ummm, I … er… well, I’m temping at the moment. So I mean, I’m looking for a job. I mean, I guess I’m working as a PA, but it’s not what I want to do. But as a PA I don’t really do anything. But I want to work in publishing. Or the media. Or anything creative. But ummm … I’ve done a lot of travelling, so hence the temping. But unemployment, you know? And I like typing? And umm… yeah, no, I’m working as a PA. Sort of.’

I felt too inadequate to string a sentence together. Was it possible my brain was now mushy peas from being underused? My stammering and stuttering, my inability to proudly say what I was doing clearly pointed out two things: Firstly, I must be a massive snob. Secondly, that my sense of identity was tied very closely to what I did, rather than who I was.

PA’s work bloody hard. They have to be intuitive and reliable, and downright manipulative when it comes to organising meetings with 12 people. Every single PA I’ve met has been absolutely lovely – they are caring, fun, and clever people. But I don’t want to be a PA. I want to have a PA. I want to be the one coming up with ideas, not the one printing them out and binding them. And because of this ambition, I don’t want to be identified as ‘just a PA’. Cue shame over job snobbery.

And this secondly thing? My sense of identity? I felt that if I said I was a PA, I’d be immediately put into a PA shaped box (an outline that features heavily on the drapey cardigan, coffee in one hand, and pen in the other). And I feel like I don’t belong there. That these new people must not put me in that box. That I am so much more than can fit into that damn box, and that circumstance is shoving me in there.

I don’t know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, this resistance to being defined by my current underemployment status. It’s prickly, and hence pushing me to continue with job applications, which is an excellent thing. But it’s also teaching me to not put other people in boxes. That people are so incredibly multifaceted that they cannot be defined by what they do in their day. I’m learning to watch for how people actively choose to define themselves. For some, it is their job. For others it’s their friends, or live music, travelling.

Or clothes. There’s one girl here at this workplace who wears spangly tights and stripper shoes so she’s definitely defining herself as outside this corporate-dress-code financial box.

Just found this gem of a blog: Ivy Leagued and Unemployed.
This was an especially interesting post - though I'm still undecided about whether having no job is better than having a shitty one. I've been trying the shitty job thing for nearly two years now and I'm well over it. I do like drinking though. Hence the shitty job. It's the ciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiircle of liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife, right?

Lana Del Ray: Born To Die

2011-12-16T09:55:00.000+11:00

lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove

The makeup. Those blue flowers. The lyrics! The freaking tigers. Chapel ceilings, old cars, fog and dirty messy kisses.

(see her other clip here)

Looking Back

2011-12-16T03:08:00.000+11:00

Marvelling at my ability to only ever land at the gate furthest from the arrivals lounge, I shoulder my hand luggage a little more securely and keep trudging. Slightly sweating, I curse my current state of overheating as I trundle along in my thick jacket, gloves and scarf in preparation for the imminent icy blast when I do eventually find the exit.

Snaking my way around Heathrow airport after a mini weekend in Hamburg I think ahead to the long tube ride home, and wonder what the odds are on finding a ladder-free and clean pair of stockings that will service for work the next day. I pass one of those vending machines selling international SIMcards to weary travellers, and am instantly thrown back to my own first arrival in London, nearly 18 months ago...

Laden down with laptops and overcoats (I’d left a Sydney winter), having lost my deodorant to security, I had two hours in Heathrow before jetting off immediately to the Greek Islands. Intermittent emails to Jess, who had already set up her sunbed on Santorini and prepared me for the wonders of Homer, our shirtless pool-cleaning villa owner, led me to believe that she would most likely be dancing on a bar when I arrived. An international SIM card was therefore a necessity if I was ever to hunt her and Homer (and thus my bed) down. Sadly taking out my Australian SIM on my gaffa-taped old phone, I put my new international SIM in, ready and excited to begin my overseas adventures.

After a nonstop transit (Sydney-Bangkok-Heathrow-Athens-Santorini AND NO DEODORANT), I finally arrived in Santorini. And the rest is a blur of sunshine, sunscreen, new friends, and entire nights dancing.

Before I knew it I was in Paris and scrambling around Versailles.

Then landing in London in all the deliciousness of sweet summer twilights, before driving off to Oxford for a wedding that included kilts and ceileidhs.

Between drinking and working in cafes and studying the tube maps, I popped over to Paris to write dreamy musings while sitting on the steps of Le Sacre Couer and in the Shakespeare & Co. bookshop. Onto underground pubs and wishing on bridges in Prague. Then I was faced with my first Christmas alone without my family, replaced with my first Christmas running around Trafalgar Square and drinking cocktails that had been set on fire at the Aldwych Hotel instead. I lived through my first snow, and I had a NYE that started with fireworks from London Bridge and ended with vogue-ing to Madonna at 8 in the morning in someone else’s loungeroom.

I got a job, made new friends. Caught the night bus to Paris for picnics under the Eiffel Tower and shopping in the Marais.

I explored Bath and Brighton and Edinburgh. Bacon butties, duvets, and pants-are-not-trousers conundrums expanded my vocab. I moved house and occasionally wrote in my blog. I read lots of books, and went to crazy bars and spent too much on wine, and raced constantly for the last tube home.

There was two weeks locked in a car with my bestie from home, partying around Ireland and Berlin.

Before I knew it I was driving an old VW onto a ferry that dropped my sister and I, and some friends, in France, where a TomTom and a good 80s mixtape guided us through the heat of Barcelona, the lavender fields of Provence, and the rolling hills of Tuscany. Mozzarella balls, lemoncello, fireworks and fiestas came alongside painting an old apartment in Italy.

The wonders of Rome, the Biennale in Venice, a quick transit through Milan flew by.

I had everything important to me stolen.

I went home for a wedding, and somehow came back.

These and seventy bajillion other million things more have happened since I first bought that international SIM card, way back in July 2010. I look back on that girl – overloaded, brazenly not-nervous but perhaps slightly anxious, both terrified and impatient for adventure. And I think how much she has grown, that big-little Australian girl. And I marvel that she is me, and that I know all sorts of things now that she didn’t know then.

And I feel sad that I don’t have it all in front of me to do again.

Except for maybe piling on the pounds and getting all my shit stolen. And struggling to find a job. And sometimes being so lonely I thought my jaw might break from the tension of crying.

But perhaps, even then.

LoveLists

2011-12-09T07:47:00.000+11:00

Listening… Well, not much really. This Lana Del Ray song, which i swear I do just to make myself cry.

Reading… A book called The Radleys (weird vampire fiction posing as normal fiction). I've just finished some ace medieval fantasy series such as The Kingkiller Chronicles and A Song of Ice And Fire (aka Game of Thrones). Spent a few minutes discussing The Slap the other day (the day of Byron and Harrow). Re-read Jane Eyre, as I do every year. I'm so grateful that I can re-read my favourite books. There are certain ones I re-read ever year, and it is such a gift to give myself.

Watching… Anything that has a Kardashian in it. X Factor. ZOMG Downton Abbey. Didn't sleep for a few days while getting through the second series.

Buying… A watch. I did it before I was unemployed, and it has been sitting at customs since then. I now have a job, and it is redeemed, and will arrive tomorrow. Holla!

Wearing... Pencil skirts and improbable heels, as per 'corporate' dress code. When not Dolly Parton-ing (aka 9-5) it's something leopard print, be that purple Roberto Cavalli jeans, a vintage button up shirt, a headscarf, or a furry blanket on the couch.

Wanting… A job. A real one. Replies to my job applications. Not to have to answer 'I'm a PA' to the 'What do you do?' question. Especially when talking to anyone smart/funny/goodlooking/talented.

Trying… To shake myself up and out of this lethargy. I think I'm getting there.

Loving… The feeling that I'm falling back in love with London. I teetered away for a minute there, when for a second (or a bit longer) I thought that maybe I couldn't do it. That I wouldn't do it. That I would go home, in defeat and failure. I'm holding on for a little longer though.

Writing… Whatever.

Inspired by… Friendship. Here's to @tomosushi @josie_says et al for keeping me here.

2011-12-08T11:36:00.001+11:00

MY own shadow stretches out before me, legs long and fearless. I have lit a cigarette, and take three drags before I pull off my glove, unwilling even for the cold, to ruin the leather. I miss you, and I'm listening to music that makes me miss you. I've talked about you tonight, in a way that I often talk about you: as something tangible and real. Even though I am going home to a cold and empty bed, and you are very far away. My heel strikes against an uneven stone - or likely strikes against nothing at all, my irregular clumsiness pulling through the mists of this cold London night - and the drag of it makes me pause in my confidence that we are something. Most likely we are nothing. Most likely we are not. Whatever the likeliness, we are not anything right now. But these songs that I choose to listen to say something else, and I miss you.

I've laughed tonight. I've flicked my head, and pulled my hair off my face, twisting and twirling it in rhythm with the conversation around me. I've handed out my number like it's a business card, knowing full well I don't want to hear from anyone.
I had at least seven good thoughts, in this walk home from the tube. Even the cold couldn't touch me. But now I'm inside, and this sounds like a letter I would never send, even though I itch to press publish. Which I will, because I'm daring myself to.

Maybe you are this: http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/the-one-person-you-never-really-get-over/

Harrow

2011-12-08T07:25:00.000+11:00

After successfully managing not to fall down the stairs at the best-themed party of the year (Lash N Tash/Ugly Christmas Sweaters. Guys in moustaches, girls in fake lashes, and the spanglier the sweater the better) at Camden Lock, I woke up too late to bake a cake, and rather scrambled over to Harrow-on-the-Hill to talk and laugh with old friends and new friends.

The divine Elise (whose commiseration is of the kind that floats clouds in coffee ) lives right near Harrow-on-the-Hill, and we tripped along a path that crested through a hill and we passed Harrow, where Byron went to school. While we didn't have time to hunt out the plaque (there was tea to be had. Tea and laughter), we were on those hills where Byron had sported.

On A Distant View Of Harrow

Ye scenes of my childhood, whose lov'd recollection
Embitters the present, compar'd with the past;
Where science first dawn'd on the powers of reflection,
And friendships were form'd, too romantic to last;

Where fancy, yet, joys to retrace the resemblance
Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied;
How welcome to me your ne'er fading remembrance,
Which rests in the bosom, though hope is deny'd!

Again I revisit the hills where we sported,
The streams where we swam, and the fields where we fought;
The school where, loud warn'd by the bell, we resorted,
To pore o'er the precepts by Pedagogues taught.

Again I behold where for hours I have ponder'd,
As reclining, at eve, on yon tombstone I lay;
Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wander'd,
To catch the last gleam of the sun's setting ray.

I once more view the room, with spectators surrounded,
Where, as Zanga, I trod on Alonzo o'erthrown;
While, to swell my young pride, such applauses resounded,
I fancied that Mossop himself was outshone.

Or, as Lear, I pour'd forth the deep imprecation,
By my daughters, of kingdom and reason depriv'd;
Till, fir'd by loud plaudits and self-adulation,
I regarded myself as a Garrick reviv'd.

Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I regret you!
Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast;
Though sad and deserted, I ne'er can forget you:
Your pleasures may still be in fancy possest.

To Ida full oft may remembrance restore me,
While Fate shall the shades of the future unroll!
Since Darkness o'ershadows the prospect before me,
More dear is the beam of the past to my soul!

But if, through the course of the years which await me,
Some new scene of pleasure should open to view,
I will say, while with rapture the thought shall elate me,
Oh! such were the days which my infancy knew.

Lord Byron

ENGLAND you steal my heart, again and again and again.

Hampstead Christmas Markets

2011-12-06T22:00:00.000+11:00

So clearly the only way to recover from Rebel Bingo is to stroll around the crisp streets of Hampstead for their family friendly Christmas fair. It was while wandering around, marvelling at the lightness of my hangover, that I realised I've been having some sneaky bits of fun in London, amidst by unemployed days of bluuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that just seemed so never-ending.

SO, I present the twee of a London Christmas fair. To wit:

An organ-playing, 17th century fun carriage that promises to 'Enchant thine ear', which it probably does as long as you time your loiter for onlya few minutes at a time.

Organic, local tea. Tea of many leaves. So much tea. And then more.

Mmmmm, produce.

Don't let those fairy wings fool you. She was hitting her stylish sister (nice gilet babes) with that hammer.

A REINDEER. A REAL ONE.

Pale ecru skies, bare trees, a red phone box.

Windswept stairs, keeping hold of those last few autumn leaves.

ALSO A REAL LIVE OWL. LIKE HEDWIG. BUT NOT WHITE. BUT STILL AN OWL.

Yummmmmmmmmm. Delicious and keeps your hands warm.

Curving brown facades, pale skies, antiquarian book stores, and inside jokes.

And shop windows that are begging for squidged noses and clouds of excited breaths.

Underground Rebel Bingo

2011-12-06T05:13:00.001+11:00

'So it's bingo?'

'Yes.'

...

'For rebels?'

'Yes.'

Yes. Yes it is. Invited I was, and so I went. And boy, is it ever underground. And rebellious. And though all signs might point to an evening promoted to learning correct social etiquette, trust me, that is just a ruse to keep secret the fact that bingo is indeed played. With a rude, fucked up vengeance.

Underground Rebel Fucking Bingo.

The rules are simple:
No old people.
No boring people.
No wankers.
No office parties.
No hen parties.
No stag parties.
No work suits.
No customer service.
Dress Code: Undercover on your way there, dangerous once you’re inside

The premise is generally that hot, young, depraved bingo players will gather in secret to play the glorious game in between chugging beer out of plastic cups, drawing on each other's faces, and dancing like motherflippers on crack. The prizes included a KIGU for God's sakes (I think he got the chicken. Well jelly) and BEER (cases of it) and a PARTY PANDA (Party. Panda.) that is a giant panda who wants to be your friend and help you party. Who doesn't want a party panda?

It's sweaty and pushy. The bingo calls are rude and obscene, made by babes of ladies dressed in burlesque. I don't want to quote some of their choicer morsels because I think sometimes my mum reads my blog, and I'm still scarred from having to hold a tablespoon of mustard in my mouth when I was five, probably for saying 'shit' or something. My mamma be feisty.

For a much funnier history of the URBC than I could invent, see here courtesy of the ever bangin' Sabotage Times. Also here you can read some of the rude words, don't tell my mum I told you.

Underground Rebel Bingo Club - You won't see us but we're everywhere. You won't hear us but we're right behind you. We're everywhere and nowhere, but wherever we are we're playing dirty secret hardcore Rebel Bingo on the down low.

And not that you can really see, but I wore jeans from French Connection, a Sass & Bide top, vintage shearling jacket, and vintage hat (that was continuously stolen). And my new hair (This self indulgent pic is for you Tracey!)

Accessories couresy of the below two, who are evidence of what happens when nice people play underground rebel bingo.

Sorry for the quality of pictures, I am still mourning my camera. Anyone want to buy me a replacement? Damn tumbleweeds...

blanket me

2011-11-23T10:00:00.000+11:00

images via deathwearsdiamondjewellery and nineteen candles

Brave

2011-11-22T05:18:00.001+11:00

Disney/Pixar's first female protagonist. And her hair! And the Scottish accents. And the whole medieval thing. Everything, but especially her hair.

Lana Del Ray

2011-11-22T04:56:00.001+11:00

I had been meaning to look up this clip for ages, and then it came on some countdown thing that I was watching today while despondently clicking through Guardian Jobs. I couldn't figure out if I liked it, which is usually a good indication that I'm going to love it.

2011-11-21T03:00:00.001+11:00

Déjeuner du matin-Breakfast-Jacques Prévert
Il a mis le café He poured the coffee
Dans la tasse Into the cup
Il a mis le lait He poured the milk
Dans la tasse de café Into the cup of coffee
Il a mis le sucre He put the sugar
Dans le café au lait Into the milky coffee
Avec la petite cuiller With the little spoon
Il a tourné He stirred it
Il a bu le café au lait He drank the milky coffee
Et il a reposé la tasse He put down the cup
Sans me parler Without a word to me
Il a allumé He lit
Une cigarette A cigarette
Il a fait des ronds He made rings
Avec la fumée With the smoke
Il a mis les cendres He put the ash
Dans le cendrier Into the ashtray
Sans me parler Without a word
Sans me regarder Without looking at me
Il s'est levé He got up
Il a mis He put
Son chapeau sur sa tête His hat on his head
Il a mis He put
Son manteau de pluie His raincoat on
Parce qu'il pleuvait Because it was raining
Et il est parti And he left
Sous la pluie Into the rain
Sans une parole Without a word
Sans me regarder Without looking at me
Et moi j'ai pris And I put
Ma tête dans ma main My head into my hands

Et j'ai pleuré. And I cried.

2011-11-17T07:17:00.000+11:00

Also, are pointy toes making a comeback?

via www.mybarestyle.com

Friends/Coffee/Clouds

2011-11-17T01:38:00.000+11:00

I had coffee with a darling friend today, and it has helped so much to shake me out of my unemployed apathy. Well, the apathy anyway, not so much the unemployment. We met at Flat White, in Soho. Flat White is like the original (or so I've heard) Australian/NZ cafe that actually created the Aus/NZ coffee reputation. It didn't disappoint, and it was a relief to actually have a flat white that wasn't an Americano with a splash of milk. (I DON'T LITERALLY MEAN A COFFEE THAT IS FLAT AND WHITE YOU DOLTS).

It felt like this:

Like our troubles were there with us, these big white fluffy clouds. And we couldn't see the silver linings in being unemployed in London (there isn't really one, aside from being able to meet during the day I guess). But sitting there chatting together meant our little cloud troubles were floating in the hot chocolate of friendship (OH MY GOD IT'S LIKE POETRY.)
It was just such a damn relief to chat to someone who is in exactly the same position as I am. There was no helpful advice. There was no flippant 'you'll find something soon'. There was no abstract mutterings about recessions and depressions. So we commiserated each other on the shittiness that is job seeking in London, and then spent more time plotting to start a book club. Take that, employment.

ChristineCentenera

2011-11-16T10:42:00.000+11:00

Just everything about these outfits.

Editor of Australia's Harper's Bazaar.

images via Stokholm Street Style, Wikifashion, and tfs

The Winter of Our Discontent

2011-11-15T14:21:00.000+11:00

Wouldn't you swear these houses can feel?

I wonder how many dreams and hopes they have and hold. Waiting for their second springtime.

100 Abandoned Houses

Beyonce

2011-11-15T11:00:00.000+11:00

For some Sunday lolz.

TheMonsterSymphony

2011-11-15T04:19:00.000+11:00

Incredible video from Sydney band Aston. They're as talented as they are goodlooking, and deserve to go places (like Europe, on tour). Amaaaaaaazing.

The Monster Symphony is a medley of some of Lady Gaga's biggest hits.

You can check out some of their other covers (Adele, Coldplay., Beyonce, Katy Perry, Rihanna, La Roux) here: http://www.youtube.com/user/astonmusic

2011-11-14T02:14:00.000+11:00

via carolinesmode.com

I think it might be time to wear my purple leopard print Roberto Cavalli jeans more often. I always think they are too OTT, but if I keep it simple (you know, with my new plain grey tshirt!), could work, no?

2011-11-13T22:59:00.000+11:00

Of being 17 and waiting all week to watch. Both an avoidance to study and a reward. Peanut M&Ms. Favourite soundtracks. Waiting for freedom.

Of Twice Learned Lessons (that I could do without)

2011-11-13T03:50:00.000+11:00

Like Anne Shirley, my nose is my comfort. It's little and straight, with a wee silver stud in it. I must have a short upper lip because if you ever watch my nose when I'm talking (in profile of course) it bobs along in agreement with my ems and bees. I have a thing for noses in others, and have received a few strange looks on my spontaneous appreciation of a fine nose.

I also have a thing for teeth. I always wanted braces but never got them. I thought I needed to break my leg and have crutches, get braces, and have a locker with a combination (may have read too many Sweet Valley High books as a kid) to be a legitimate teenager. I never had any of these things, and I'm much less sorry now. Who in their right mind wants to break their leg? Braces sound really painful and expensive. Alright fine, I still want the locker.

But anwyay I've been genetically blessed with white straight teeth.

I was blessed with white, straight, whole teeth for most of my life. A few years ago I was at a club in Sydney with my older sister and three rather hunky Swedish boys we were squiring abound town. At this particular little club they only served beer in bottles, and some miniature person standing in front of me threw her head back at something that must have been SO INCREDIBLY FUNNY with enough force to knock the beer bottle in my hand right into my teeth, chipping the bottom right corner of my front left tooth.

Devastation.

In one attempted sip of a beer bottle I had gone from a smiling, alcoholically-fuelled confident Lady to someone who spoke for the rest of the night with her hand over her mouth. Until I could get to a dentist I felt like I'd lost my entire education along with that bit of tooth enamel, simultaneously shfting suburbs to the west (a definite Sydney reference).

A few days later I was in a car accident (unrelated? perhaps not), and I remember babbling to the policeman (must have been in shock, but probably not) for him not to look at my chipped tooth and that I actually went to a really good school and I was a nice person.

All this over a chip that was in all seriousness about 1 mm x 2 mm.

HOW JUDGEMENTAL AM I??

Anyway, the dentist charged me a mozza to fill it in, and it was good as new, though I've not since been able to eat apples with any sort of Snow White-esque sang-froid.

And then it fell out the other day.

Not the whole tooth (WOULD I BE SITTING HERE CALMLY IF SUCH A MONSTROUS EVENT HAD TAKEN PLACE?), just the cap.

I was out at one of my favourite pubs, Paradise by Way of Kensal Green, drinking and laughing with my mouth wide open, and not a care in the world. The next thing I knew I was reapplying my killer red lipstick in the bathrooms, and instead of the cartoon dazzle I was used to seeing in the reflection, a dark hole had bloomed in that teeny bottom right corner of my front left tooth. My gaping enormous miniature chip! Disaster!

Between talking with my mouth shut, smiling with my eyes, and making explanations of my tooth before anyone I met could possibly have noticed it, unless they had x-ray vision, it was an awful few days. Happens that I had an enormous wedding extravaganza up in Cornwall that weekend and I wouldn't be able to get to the dentist for at least a week.

And you know what?

No one noticed. No one. Until I pointed it out, which of course I did, like a maniac, to anyone that even looked like they were approaching a conversation with me. And then they basically had to shove their eyes into my mouth to see it (trust me, I was chewing mints all the time. With my back molars).

While I felt like my entire face was now a farce - and heaven help me and find me a brown paper bag quickly if ever I break my nose - people were quite capable of holding entire conversations with me, chipped tooth and all. Quelle surprise! If I hadn't pointed it out, no one would have noticed. It's like when someone has a massive zit on their face, and the first thing they say when they see you is 'Oh my God, don't look at the massive zit on my face.' Well of course the first thing you do is look at the zit. And whether it's enormous or teeny, doesn't matter. The only person that actually cares about it is you.

It's fixed again now. Thank goodness. This cap doesn't feel quite as smooth as the other one, but I do feel less like a vampire whenever I gnaw at my lower lip (bad habit).

NB: I wrote this post a while ago. AND JUST THIS SECOND MY EFFING CAP FELL OFF. So now I am going to post this so that I can learn to practice what I preached. And I'm going to a party tonight and gahhhhhh jidasj;fgiasldjfieasjfsjdfaloeifjd dn I'm angry. Stupid bloody dentist stupid face stupid tooth. Not smiling anymore.

New Zara

2011-11-13T01:37:00.000+11:00

I know that Zara has just opened in Sydney, and I'm quite glad I'm nowhere near it. It sounds like the queues are awful, the collections limited, and you can spot Zara shoppers a mile away. Not that spotting a Zara-ite a mile away is necessarily a bad thing. There's a girl at work who seems to shop solely at Zara. And I know this because I want her bag and her coat.

This bag in particular. Mum, Christmas??

And then I saw their new lookbook. Wowsers. I think they've broken away from their own Zara-ness, and it's amazing.

I love the patterns most of all I think. The genius of that dark chambray/denim shirt teemed with a workday skirt and severe jacket. The buttoned up collars, the scalloped shirts. The deep red scruffy Chanel-esque jacket. Draped dresses in storm colours. Gorgeous. Working in an office I sometimes really struggle to force my rather eclectic wardrobe into office mode. I'm incapable of buying anything practical (I bought my first plain grey tshirt the other day. It was epic), and I love the amounts of personality in this collection, as it blurs the boundaries between self-expression and appropriate occasion.

2011-11-13T01:18:00.001+11:00

via brick&bones

Photos like this make me miss Sydney, and all my grotty terrace houses. Late night conversations, open windows, and my walls.

Electronically, my life

2011-11-12T04:45:00.001+11:00

'If I lost my iphone I would die.'

'I can't live without my computer. My laptop is my life.'

'My camera is my baby. I don't go anywhere without it.'

Sound familiar? I'm sure we've all uttered at least one of these phrases throughout our lives. We are the technology generation after all.

I know I've said all three of these things, repeatedly.

I was given my first mobile phone by my best friends when I turned 17, bless them. I can still remember the sturdiness of that old Nokia 3315 (damn those things were indestructible). Before that was the dark ages, when we all used to race to the home phone, hopinghopinghoping it would someone calling for you. I grew up with dial up internet and MSN Messenger, holding my breath as I waited for the dial up to connect, sign me in and log me on, hours disappearing into inane chats. When the price of film mattered more than the camera, each picture precious and considered, and worthy of the week's wait for them to develop.

Gradually we all grew up, updating to smart phones and data allowances, free wifi, laptop bags, and rainbow wheels of death; digital cameras that snapped and clicked rather than whirred and wound, a thousand photos for a single image.

We are now the ones who are constantly plugged in. Always on line. Totally in tune to our ring tone, our vibrations, our blinking LED lights. We can talk and text at the same time, hold 17 conversations at once on fb chat. We have left MySpace for dust, and haven't quite gotten the point of Google+, though we all have a profile there. We do our homework with a million tabs open on our browser, reading fashion blogs, the paper, tweeting, and stalking, while making playlists in our itunes and plugging our mate's latest filmclip on youtube. We do this all at once.

Our parents don't understand. Mine have instituted a no-phones-at-dinner policy, and if you answer your phone, be it text or call, while at the dinner table, you are instantly on washing up duty. I have learned to recognise the glazed over look of concentration when someone is nimbly texting under the table, and forbear to ask them to pass the salt.

We are bound with cables and all the paraphernalia that comes with our gadgets. Chargers are shared around, easily lost and as easily replaced.

We share our lives online. We back ourselves up. For every photo that is published to facebook and flickr there are several that don't make the cut but loiter on our hard drives nonetheless. We are hoarders of memories, taking hundreds of photos in a single night out. I had over 14,000 photos on my laptop, gathered over just three years.

When I finally saved up to buy a DSLR I was in heaven. It was big, damnit, but it was good. It was worth the weight to carry around, worth ruining a million handbags trying to shove it in there. It was my baby, and if I couldn't fit it in its case, I'd wrap it up in a beanie or scarves, just so I could take it out.

I don't have my iphone anymore. I don't have my laptop, or my hard drive. I don't have my camera.

They were stolen from our car, on my amazing incredible two month jaunt around Europe. I still remember that gagging hot panic, realising that our car had been broken into. At first I just thought it was my laptop. Then I realised I couldn't see my camera. Or my handbag. It was gone. All of it.

Even now, I cannot bear to think of it. It is raw, like a wound that won't heal. And I endlessly go over in my head how it could have been different, how I could have not had them all stolen. But it's no use. They're gone.

I tell myself that no one died. That no one is hurt. And that if this is the worst thing to happen to me, then I am so lucky. That it's just stuff.

And I know it is so ridiculous, so #firstworldproblems to continue to cry over stupid electronic things that are gone. But it's not only the things themselves, it's how much of myself those things contained. I have lost all my photos. All 14,000 of them. All my photos of my trips to Prague and Paris, my London adventures. All the photos of my families and friends. All the photos that I shared only with one other person - the stupid, silly, adorable photos that you take when you're in love.

I have lost all my writing. All my uni assignments. Everything that constituted my portfolio. I have lost my links and my favourite sites. I have lost folder upon folder of inspirational images and content. I have lost memos and phone numbers and reminders. I lost a journal that was in my handbag, one that detailed all the craziness of the adventure so far, scribbles of musings and thoughts about our trip - how glad I was to reunite with my sister, reflecting on how much we'd both changed, and how we were so much the same. I'd even thought that maybe, just maybe, this trip could be the start of a book, a story of two sisters reuniting, of growing up and exploring. Of driving an old car through France, breaking down, drinking wine, dancing in a sunset over pastel coloured cliffs.

It gnaws at me that someone took all this from me. That along with the tangible electronics, they took all of this stuff of me.

I know my laptop has been wiped, and that it is somewhere near Rome (no Facebook, it definitely wasn't me trying to log on in Rome). I know my hard drive, where everything was backed up, has probably been thrown in a bin somewhere. As for my written journal - pfffft. Gone. Those words meant nothing to anyone except for me, if they could even read the English scrawl.

It's just stuff, I tell myself endlessly.

But it was my stuff, I can't help whispering back. Mine.

So what does that make me, a child of technology without all my stuff?

Electronically? Dead and dying. Literally? Not so much.

I haven't died, though I have no iphone.
My life is still with me, and not languishing with my laptop in Rome.
And I guess my camera wasn't really my baby, if it was taken from me so easily.

If I can ever work out this insurance muddle, I will replace the laptop. And maybe the camera one day. I have a new journal, which I continue to scribble in.

Though maybe I really am dying without an iphone. London sans Google Maps? Disaster.

2011-11-12T01:43:00.000+11:00

I've had the last two days off work. And when I say 'off work' I mean that I didn't have any work lined up. Them's the breaks of temping I guess, though it makes me incredibly nervous to not be working.

Technically I am grateful that I've had the last two days free. There is a list of paperwork that I need to do that is so ridiculously long and complicated - insurance claims for everything that was stolen while travelling, papers for the car that we left in Italy (poor Turk!), complicated job applications, sorting out tax and Centrelink issues.

And I don't want to do any of it. Sitting in the flat all day, going hungry for hours rather than making myself anything to eat, I procrastinate until I send myself mad. It reminds me of those years of home-schooling, that gnawing anxiety that I should be doing something, surely, with life. Anything rather than sitting in my room listening to Triple J, my books open and ready while I sit and stare out the window at the unchanging front garden.

I should Nike myself up and Just Do It. But I don't want to. I'd rather get all queer-sad and read tumblrs like this: http://thebookstheygaveme.tumblr.com/ , listening to the sound of builders and jackhammers that are everchanging the site outside my window.

2011-11-09T07:36:00.003+11:00

Red is my thing. Red glasses, red lipstick, red nails.

I used to work at a pub, and one day the boss, a gruff balding man with the requisite belly, looked at me as I was carrying three schooners from one end of the bar to the other, and said, 'You always have red nails.'

He then did something manly to counteract his fashion insight, like continue to wipe the bar or something super helpful.

Luckily I was concentrating too much on not spilling the beer to give him the eyebrow spazz out I wanted to - that one where your eyebrows want to shoot up in surprise and frown in consternation at the same time, and end up in a sort of scrunchy wriggle. Firstly, he'd noticed something I hadn't even noticed - that I'd been wearing red nailpolish, with nary a deviation, for about a year. This feat was no doubt helped along by the fact that I had a babe of a housemate with an awesome collection of red nailpolishes, and way too much time on my hands (on my nails?) when I should have been studying. Oh for the carefree days of uni! But I used to bite my nails. Not to the Black Swan cuticle savaging point (aaghhkkk! happy unicorns-fairy-ranbows-ok), but just enough that they were never long. And I have ugly hands. A former housemate (not the babe, a housemate of the man variety) kindly calls my hands 'gluten free sausage fingers', and makes a point of asking to see them anytime we catch up. When I moved to London and smiled politely while serving ignorant caffeine drinkers their lattes, my hands spent inordinate amounts of time in washing up liquid. Slaving away earning £6 an hour (yep, try standing on your feet for 8 hours and not even earning £50!!) completely ruined my nails #firstworldproblems. They were doing that split peely thing, where you can peel a layer off the top. I know, it's gross. Moving into the genteel world of office temping, where I fanny around with people's photocopying rather than press releases, allowed my nails a break - I mean a chance to recover. Three months gallivanting around Italy and France and Australia gave them further time to recover, and at some point I stopped biting them (maybe I felt too sorry for them?) and now my nails are long! YAY!

This is YAY! for several reasons:

It makes wearing red nail polish even more fun.

It makes my gluten free sausage finger hands look sort of nearly nice.

I can really enjoy wearing rings, because my hands look slimmer. I used to wear rings anyway, now I don't feel sorry for anyone who happened to have their attention drawn to my hands due to my love for oversized costume jewellery.

I can now hold court with my two sisters who used to be awful nail biters and now have amazing nails. Booyah, I'm catching up wit' you!

So there you go. Don't bite your nails. And enjoy red nailpolish.

Those are the only two possible morals that can be pinpointed out of this long tail about how I like wearing red nailpolish. It's probably so long because I enjoy the taptaptap my nails make against the keyboard while I type. And also, when you're temping, there's often nothing better to do than write inane posts to later put on your blog.

If you are still awake, ~~below are some quick snaps I took of my three little purchases from the MinkPink/Evil Twin/Staple sample sale.~~ i deleted the pictures. The quality is so bad. I WANT MY CAMERA BACK.

A gorgeous deep maroon Celtic-esque kimono. Now I just need to get my sister to send my back my Topshop leather pants after foolishly leaving them in Sydney.

A chiffon-y white collared shirt with black star marks. Faintly pagan, with billowing sleeves that cuff into wristbands.

An olive green maxi dress that will probably not get any wear for a long time, but the cut and fabric are just lovely.

Laters.

QuietWeekending

2011-11-07T23:37:00.000+11:00

Call it the curse of the weather. Call it sheer laziness. Call it an unsociability born of years and years of wanting nothing more than to be left alone to read my books. Call it what you will, but I love me a quiet weekend. I had the flat to myself, a wedding calling housemates north to Edinburgh. Coming from a freakily large family I crave solitude a whole lot more than the average person. It's all well and good to be able to shut your bedroom door, but to be totally alone to clean the kitchen while only wearing a bathtowel and belting out some stupid song with the unfortunate wooden spoon that just wanted to be washed, is something else altogether.*

So Friday night I hied me home to eat crumpets, read Game of Thrones (OBSESSED) and drink hot chocolate. Saturday caught up with some family to scream at the XFactor while drinking Oyster Bay (which the offie on the corner stocks specially) and then kicked through the autumn leaves over Putney Bridge on Sunday to see the beautiful Laura and new bub Jake.

I love me some babies. Despite the cat lady predictions of my delightfully numerous siblings, I'll leave the felines to others. Also the pictures of pandas dressed in tutus and meerkats and chihuahuas and all those other fluffy things that I think must be photoshopped (leave them some dignity peoples!). I'll take the babies anytime.
* Not saying I did these things.

BrightLittleChristmasLights

2011-11-07T07:39:00.003+11:00

Last night I braved Oxford Street, playing shoulder charge chicken with the thousands upon thousands who cram into London's main shopping area every day. It was 6 o'clock and I'd just left work, opting to wander down to a MinkPink, Evil Twin, and Staple sample sale in Poland Street rather than hanging around for work drinks (thus I sketch my character for you, dear invisible and maybe non-existent readers - I choose clothes over free booze).

The air was warm, and it was mostly not raining, which is a perfectly legitimate description of London weather. The occasional splash of water did plonk itself down the teeny space between my eyelashes and my glasses, startling me and leaving me momentariily blind as I tried to wipe the dirty rain away and leave my eyeliner in place. However, I didn't need an umbrella, and my new suede boots were looking to survive unscathed, so it was mostly not raining.

I'm a fast walker, a determined walker. I know when to stare down my opponent, and I know when to barrel through with my head down, pretending oblivion. I have even been called a charger, and like to think mysef invincible. At least until I am faced with a Woman+Pram. Before such obstacles I valiantly defer pavement. Having nannied for years, I know the rage of the pram-pusher. But on Oxford St, between the meandering tourists, the thoughtless window shoppers with their sudden stoppages, errant children, hunched and harried Londoners, and the inveterate walk-and-texters, I mostly win shoulder charge chicken. Or at least draw, occasionally banging shoulders or handbags with another charger, colliding with an oomph! and a half hearted apology that I can't even hear myself make over my headphones.

Enough witticisms to set the scene.

This was my first time after dark (not hard when it's now dark at 4 pm) along Oxford St this year. It. Was. Magical. Wandering along past Selfridges is something that makes your jaw drop in wonder, before grinning like a kid and maybe even slowing down the charge to admit a little Christmas-esque caper. The Oxford St lights are lit! There are giant sized presents and umbrellas dangling strung above the road in the best fanciful Mary Poppins way. Debenhams looks like striped candy! M&S is a wall of twinkles! Trees which I've never even noticed before (aside from registering that they are things that definitely won't get out of my way. I do yield to trees, I'm not insane) are all a-sparkly and wonderful and pretty. Christmas traditions make sense up here, you know? Have you ever smelt chestnuts roasting? Have you? It's magical. And I remembered barrelling up out of the tube one morning last year around this time, to find that it had started snowing. There was a peculiar hush that morning, as the lights glimmered, and the cars and buses were silenced by the snow. It felt like Christmas.

And last night, I had my first little taste of this season's Christmas sprit.

Pretty pretty art installation in Selfridges

Just waiting to see my first knitted jumper, and have my first suicidal impulse while listening to excessively crap Christmas carols on repeat.
Then I'll know it's Christmas.

PS. Sample sale was awesome sauce

2011-11-02T06:06:00.002+11:00

The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.

— The History Boys

2011-10-21T05:51:00.000+11:00

I have been waiting for the magic of London to wrap around me like a blanket. But London doesn't do that. It spreads itself out before you, but it won't reach out to embrace you. It is there to be explored, to challenge you, to get you lost and frustrated and exhilerated. But make you feel loved? No.

I'm back in London, bruised and battered, and slightly rested from three months of manic travelling. Though manic is perhaps the wrong word - who in their right mind could call camping in a riverbed in Tuscany manic? Strolling the streets of Venice? Driving through fields of lavendar that cling to gentle hillsides in Provence? Where is the frantic rush in lazy days painting an old apartment in the siesta-heavy afternoons of Italy?

It feels bittersweet that it is all over,, that I am back in London looking for work and bracing for the cold. I miss the sunshine. I miss my sister. I miss my friends.

2011-09-15T02:10:00.000+10:00

[Conversation about my oh-so-iminently-iminent trip home]
Tracey: What are you most keen for?

Me: I want to put on some ridiculous song from Glee, and dance around the kitchen with my little sisters, while chasing my little brothers into the shower because they are stinky after playing sport and drink wine with mum, and tell dad all the little uncoordinated, illogical things that I did that he would never do and argue with my bigger little brothers about their horrendous taste in music, and why they should be nicer to their girlfriends (or point out why they dont have one lol).

That's what I'm most keen for. As well as driving into my driveway way too fast, going to the shops in my tracksuit pants, and knowing where I'm going, and to laughing and loving and dancing and sucking the marrow out of life. Oh, I'm going home. Such magic words. Home to my people. I'm fierce glad as Scarlett O'Hara might have said.

It will be just for a delicious little taste of my old life, watching two special people getting married, and then back on a plane to London. And I'm heart glad as Anne of Green Gables might say, to be coming back to London. Having recently returned here after 6 weeks of travelling around Italy and France, it did feel like a home to me. It was familiar in its cold greyness. The sunshine only lasted an hour or two. But there was family and friends, and plans have been made and I know what I'm doing. For the minute at least.

2011-06-20T03:29:00.000+10:00

Oh haiiii, blog.

Remember me?

So summer is settling into London. Meaning that it is mid-June, and it seems to rain a lot whilst not getting dark til heaps late. After gallivanting around in Berlin for nearly a week, where the weather was AMAZEBALLS, London's attempt at summer seems rather stingy.

This has not stopped me from craving a summer wardrobe. Right near my little weekend cafe (oh how I wish that meant the cafe I brunched at, reading magazines and sipping lattes, instead of the cafe I muddle up full English breakfasts be they scrambled or poached) is this gorgeous little charity shop. And I managed to spend all my weekend's tips in one fell swoop. This included:

Eeep! Come on, summer!!

Cabaret

2011-05-27T06:23:00.001+10:00

The illustrious Lucy and I strolled along to a Cabaret show the other day at Madam JoJos in Soho. Not before drinking vino in Soho Square out of paper coffee cups begged from Costas, of course. We be classy broads.

This is what I wore, for you folks watching at home:

Zara shirt, Vintage leopard skirt from Paris, mon cousin's G Star Boots.

And oh my lordy, cabaret is fun! It was so saucy and seated in this underground red velvet room, crammed full of chairs and tables and guttering candles, and soft cushions, it really felt like it captured some of that 1920s-playing-card-in-the-chest-pocket-of-a-war-hero-vibe.

If you'd asked me my opinion of nipple tassles before, you probs would have gotten a sketchy raised eyebrow.

Now? Probs to ya, lady. You got it going on.

2011-05-26T06:23:00.000+10:00

I have prowled my little flat, and trawled my stash of internets. I've snacked on yoghurt, and firmly put the crisps back in the cupboard unopened. The flowers sitting beside me are cloying, their water cloudy as they live and decay at the same time. Traffic is unending, and a British summer twilight is dragging out into the yellowing darkness of city lights and smog. My laptop is on 24% battery, and going to get the cord is annoying. I want to make tea, but really I want wine. Wine to unfold into myself a pleasant haze. But I don't. Impulses are like smudgy snails tonight, poking out slowly with suggestions of occupation and food, but not moving fast enough to take.

Perhaps it is the artificial quiet inside the flat, my headless reflection in the window in front of me, that makes me wonder if I've said anything at all spontaneous today.

It was my birthday yesterday, and I think that it is making me wonder whether I am living the life I should be living, or the one just next door to it. While I sit here with the flowers that live and die at the same time.

DIY

2011-05-26T06:15:00.000+10:00

Gorgeous, no? Found via Dolce Vita.

2011-05-12T00:09:00.000+10:00

Just a little bit of wisdom from this great big heartbreaking and exhilarating city. x

Kisses

2011-05-08T01:32:00.001+10:00

It's a cloudy Saturday, but kinda muggy and hot (man I am turning British, starting every conversation with the weather). I've just gotten back from the gym, and this is an enigmatic representation of my face:

Enigmatic being an entirely unnecessary word in this case.

In other, infinitely more interesting offerings from the internetz, this is way cute:

Thanks Paul for tweetin' such a damn cute thing.

Do you remember your first kiss? Mine was spin the bottle (ergh, vomit, cliche), one Saturday afternoon hiding with a group of kids in a bedroom while our parents had coffee in the next room. Thrilling huh? My main recollections of the probably three-second-experience go something like this:

'Oh-God-do-I-have-to? Ahhh-his-face-is-so-close. Am-I-supposed-to-shut-my-eyes? What-if-I-miss-his-face? Don't-miss! Lips-ok-ew-wet! EW! Tongue! Ok-enough. Gross. Weird. Ok. I survived.'

Weird. And wet. Two inexperienced tongues, and very soft lips. Also, there was one boy in the room that I really really really (and seriously, add another 'really' in there. We were 12. Boy germs were a very real thing) did not want to kiss, so I spent most of the time stressing out about coming up with reasons to quit the game if my spin should land on him. Or his spin land on me. So I didn't really dwell on the moments as they were happening. You'll be relieved to know that I did escape dreaded germboy - pretty sure we got busted by parentals.

But it did get me thinking about first kisses... do you know, I don't think I've ever had a first kiss sober? All my first kisses have been when I was drunkittydrunkdrunkdrunk. So any possible stomach churning could be put down to nerves, yes, or the seven vodka tonics slushing around my empty stomach. I'm actually properly sad that I haven't had a first sober kiss, I feel like I'm missing out on the build ups, the nerves, the anticipation. Actually, maybe no one has sober first kisses, because teens and adults cover nerves and anticipation in sweet sweet alcoholic nectar, tiding us over into that cooler, flirtier, probably slightly less classy version of ourselves. I'd settle for tipsy though. Just something less than the blind drunk that often leads to bad decisions, and the way both regret and hilarious stories can be covered with the 'I was just so drunk' comforter. Just enough liquid courage to look someone in the eye and know that I really really really want nothing more than to kiss them in that instant, as a choice, and not just something that oops-happened-ha-ha-ha-ha-shit-woops-oh-well.

Anyway, that's a rather self-indulgent tangent from a clip of two little cuties who know how to get a reaction out of their parents.

And for the record, I have also had many lovely, non-drunk, amazing kisses (TMI? Sorry? Scroll back up and look at the tomato).

More Royal Wedding

2011-05-06T19:38:00.000+10:00

Anyone who knows me on Twitter, or In Real Life, knows how excited I was about the Royal Wedding. I’m a sucker for all things England. Except for sports that is. Putting that as a definite disclaimer. And not because I’m patriotically Australian (which I am, don’t get me wrong), but because I don’t really do sports. Anyhooooo, back to my love of the motherland. Example: When I first got here I thought I was wandering around in a Tennyson poem, and could barely get past the Thames without having an Anne of Green Gables’ rendition of The Lady of Shalllot whispering away in my imagination, and half expecting a clanking man of iron to stroll through the woods towards me. So a whole day to celebrate English-ness? Phew!

And to all the haterz out there - What’s not to love about a day off, street parties, scones, champagne, and bunting? Especially bunting! I also think Wills is a major babe, but that’s beside the point (not really, it is the point. And here's the evidence).

Trying to figure out what to do on The Day was like planning NYE celebrations, but catering for an entire day and night. I wanted to watch the procession, be at a street party, dance around Hyde Park, be in front of Buckingham Palace for the kiss, and then go out to a few clubs in the evening.

In the end, I had such an awesome weekend. I wore a dress that should only ever be termed a frock, and a lovely one at that (found at Rag & Bow vintage .More pics here.

I baked up a storm on Thursday night, completely covering the kitchen in flour, while making scones and brownies. Bizarrely I seem to be getting worse at cooking the more I do it. My scones were flat (nowhere near as towering and lofty as I remember my grandmother’s to be), and my brownies too sticky. But I can guarantee that they still tasted good. I met the lovely Lucy and Charlie at Hyde Park for peach champagne, coronation chicken pies and sausage rolls, and aforementioned scones.

We gushed and aaawed, and called the Queen an old duck, in the most affectionate words possible. The atmosphere was … lovely. It wasn’t riotous, it wasn’t boisterous (can you tell I’m comparing impressions to large scale Australian events). It was just happy. There were families with little kids in crowns.

There were teenagers hanging out with their parents. There were groups of guys in suits, and groups of guys in shorts. There were girls in wedding dresses, and pretty dresses, and girls in jeans. Trust me, it did get boisterous later, but during the ceremony, I really loved seeing how people were appreciating that aside from all the pomp and hoohah, they were witnessing a wedding of two incredibly normal (considering the circumstances) and mature people.

In fact, my Notes thingy in my iphone has this decidedly drunken gushing ramble about the whole thing (edited to remove a mention of Robert Pattinson which I don’t quite get, and a whole bunch of typos)*:

‘It’s that with all the money and the power to break with tradition (which I believe they have even though they are royals) they still chose to swear to each other, with 300 of their closest friends and 2 billion other people, that they would honour each other before all others.’

Sandi Siegler wrote a brilliant bit on marriage, and why she chose to do it over here in her blog, and it's something that stuck with me:

"My point is, that for us, marriage only added to something already great and made it even better. And how or why that happened is something beyond a survey questionnaire or a logistical explanation – something shifted, slowly, and changed, slightly. Something about the way that we feel and the bond that we have and that something is between us – and us alone."

(And while you’re over that side of the world, definitely check out Onya Magazine. Sandi is Editor-in-Chief of this great little Australian mag that features everything from travel to fashion to comedy and entertainmen, it's brilliant.)

Anyhoo. I love marriage. I love other people’s weddings, and I damn well loved this one.

SO! Post peach champagne, I caught up with the stunning Sarina over the other side of Hyde Park. And this is where the boisterous started. It was like a couple of thousand strangers were cutting loose like it was 2 am, instead of 2 pm. Dancing with complete strangers until my bosoms were well and truly heaving out of my dress, laughing at little kids jiving away, swigging wine out of the bottle (me, not the kids), and doing conga lines around picnic blankets – it was one giant park party.

There was even wedding cake!

*I remember the R-Pattz reference now. Lucy and I were totally convinced that we saw R-Pattz totes incognito in the crowd at Hyde Park. I did at least 3 walk-by’s in an attempt to confirm. Think the jury is still out. I also don’t appear to have been super impressed with the cowl necked part of an otherwise amazing McQueen bridesmaid gown. But beside the point.

Met Ball 2011

2011-05-04T07:31:00.000+10:00

The Met Gala is my favourite red carpet event. This year it was in honour of McQueen, and the red carpet didn't disappoint. In no particular order... enjoy a few of my favourites.

I'm surprised at how much I liked this look. I'm not usually a J-Lo fan. At all. But I think the flower detailed shrug moves it away from a booty hugging gown (aka like this infamous green dress) to an actual couture gown. Most of all I think it's the makeup, and most especially the lipstick

Leighton Meester in Louis Vuitton A/W11. I thought she looked absolutely fabulous, though not sure I'm a fan of those shoes with the length of the dress. I love the length of the dress, and the bondage in the detail. But the strapping on the shoes - it changes the look to one that says trussed.

Mia Waskiowska, in Thakoon, was also beautiful. Cute hair, interesting hem, pouffy skirt.

Lily Donaldson, in Erdem. Oh lace. Oh collar. Oh demure and whimsy and pale mauve bluebells.

Emma Stone is one of my favourite actresses, because Easy A is the bomb. This gorgeous floral Erdem gown goes beautifully with her soft hair. And again, the makeup is flawless.

Stunning stunning stunning. And Topshop! I love short hair on girls. I love how this dress accentuates her curves, and the shoes are plain sexy. It reminds me of something Leighton Meester would wear.

Taylor Swift, whose music I unashamedly love, is always on the my style list. And here she doesn't fail in a gorgeous deconstructed J. Mendel gown. I'm going to sound like a broken record, but again, the makeup! Those dark lips and pale skin.

Other notable mentions include Diane Kruger, who has killer pins, but didn't really shift from her goddess-like style. Zoe Saldana looked phenomenal in butter yellow. Also Nicole Richie (amazingly gothic details in the accesories for such a graceful gown), Liv Tyler (starbust yellow splash!), Doutzon Kroes (who might have wanted to avoid Gisele Bundchen because that's all-a-much too red for a red carpet), and the top half of Christina Ricci's dress. Oh, I could go on and on and on. And I haven't even gotten to the disasters... I might do that tomorrow night.

Dressed for a Royal Wedding

2011-05-04T04:25:00.000+10:00

Wasn't quite McQueen, but this was what I wore for the Royal Wedding:

Sorry for the crappy photos. I really need to figure out the whole timer/tripod thing.

Act I dress thrifted from the amazing Rag&Bow pop up shop. I fell in love with it instantly - black velvet bodice, sweetheart neckline. Black gingham taffeta skirt that fell below the knee. And a giant black bow. Oh the bow!

Black ribbon that once adorned a present.

Vintage earrings from the dress up box.

Unseen, but worn with flat black boots from Paris.

DotDashDotDot

2011-05-04T01:02:00.000+10:00

No, I don't know what that title means in Morse Code. Do you?

I can tell you that the below necklace spells out: Love (I think!)

And this is Amore.

Isn't this is one of the cutest ideas for jewellery?

You get to wear a secret message on your neck at all times. And the design is simple and sweet, and elegant. It's definitely in the vein of my Jordy Askill obsession heart ring obsession. I don't suit fine and delicate jewellery, being built more along the peasant lines when it comes to hands and feet, but that doesn't stop me wanting them. I also love how these are threaded onto thin silk, rather than a chain, or bits of leather (shudder). Just lovely, Coatts jewellery.

via I Heart Kiwi

Time Telling

2011-05-03T07:57:00.002+10:00

Still looking for the perfect watch. Think this first one qualifies.

It's modern, with its perspex band, and vintage in the face. Chunky, not too gold and blingin'. Just lovely.
http://www.shopcuffs.com/crystal-clear.html

Then these two come close seconds:

http://www.shopcuffs.com/gold-thorn.html

http://www.shopcuffs.com/elliot.html

All from the gorgeous ShopCuffs, which has some of the most interesting vintage fashion finds. I love the way they style their clothes, and that their pieces are vintage and one-off without the bad 80s throw back vibe that a lot of online stores have. I bought the most amazing dress from ShopCuffs, but I daren't show it yet because I'm saving it to wear to a wedding. Ohhh lala, excitement.

Getting a Job in London, Part 1

2011-04-28T08:18:00.000+10:00

I’ve been in London for quite a few months now. Every so often, someone asks how long, and I sit there like a petooty counting on my fingers. I think it’s 9. Nine months. Long enough to have a baby. Three quarters of a year. Three seasons, in a climate that actually has distinct ones. A Really Long Time.

My Grand Plan for London (which I mused about here) was to arrive. Try not to sit in a gutter with my suitcase and cry. Upon achieving that, shake myself off, get a fabulous job, and proceed to live a glamorous working London life.

Ahhh, youth. Idiot.

I’m not the most go-getter person around. I have vague ideas about what I want (to work in publishing) and no very clear idea about how to do it. I’m not a door-basher. I’m not a person that pushes in your face with persistence. I’m what’s probably best described as a … wallflower. I guess? See, can barely make a definitive statement about what I am. I graduated with a pretty ace media degree, and worked in online communications (social networking administrator/media liaison-y sort of role) for a few months while ‘saving’ to get over here. While friends from uni have been off doing cadetships at the ABC, editing journals and magazines, doing feature writing, and stamping their bylines all over national publications, I’ve been doing … not much.

In my defence, I didn’t want to start work in Sydney. The thought of settling into a career job straight out of 5 years at uni was death. I was sick of the city, sick of the people (friends excepted of course. Love ya babes, all), and sick of stagnating. So ‘going to London’ was the perfect answer to what I planned to do after graduation.

I lived off ‘getting to London’ for a damn long time. I think it paralysed me actually. I got here, and then I didn’t know what I wanted to do anymore. I’d ‘done’ what I’d been planning to do for so many months. Years even. Boom. The ‘what next’ question hovered around the periphery of my brain, occasionally becoming more persistent whenever I checked my bank account, or when my mum asked me how the job hunt was going. In the meantime however, there were meanders to be had along the Thames, and pints and pints of beer to drink.

And then I did start trying to get a job. Let me put this out there now: I’ve never applied for a job in my entire life. Aside from a job at the newsagents when I was 15. Other than that, I’ve never had a job interview, having always fallen into things. Which was great at the time, but has since made job hunting akin to stalking Medusa to cut off her braids. Where do you even start?

Job hunting sucks. It sucks balls. At first I optimistically sent off tailored CVs and accompanying cover letter with aplomb. Who wouldn’t want to hire me? According to the deafening silence of my inbox – everybody. Not a single reply. Nada. The continuous non-rejections wore me down. Down down down until I no longer read job descriptions with hope and a vague buzz of excitement, but rather with the particular feeling of dread that comes from the fear of being invisible. Was my CV so bad? I’d worked in an interesting role. I had a variety of random skills. I had good marks at uni. Why were my applications so crap as to not even require a ‘better luck next time’ consideration email?

Eventually I settled into café work (again, another job I didn’t apply for – thanks cousin Tim for the hook up!), and then moved onto another café (amazing the friendships you can make while drunk, and where they get you). I comforted myself with the thought that I was still trying, still looking at job adverts. Just drinking a hell of a lot of lattes in the meantime. Working for £6 an hour is nothing less than soul-destroying (do the maths – stand on your feet for 8 hours, and you still don’t even get to take home a full £50).

But I had new friends, and was an expert at flinging my drunken self onto the last tube home – result! There were weekend jaunts to Edinburgh and Prague and Paris. Day trips to Bath and Bicester Village. Summer lingered, and autumn turned out to be a beautiful display of crunchy leaves and cooling breaths. Believe it or not, the novelty of mittens, a knitted scarf from Zara, and mulled wine lulled me along for another few weeks. I was experiencing London. I was enjoying myself. I was just taking another path. I occasionally applied for jobs, and I’d at least had a few interviews by this time – one with a music company to do their social network/media management side. Another with an online retailer. Each time, I pictured myself in this new employed world, with money funding my starving shoe habit, and new groups of fabulous friends that worked in ‘the media’. Finally! Back on track! Until I met a new kind of deafening silence – the post interview silence. Which does get broken, ever so politely, with rejection. Awesome. I now considered finding a job in London to be impossible. ‘It’s impossible!’ I would declare to my mother, my friends, my grandparents. ‘Over 200 applications per role! Disgraceful!’ I would whinge to my similarly struggling friends. ‘Don’t give up,’ I would whisper to my own reflection. And everyone would murmur comforting things like ‘recession’ and ‘terrible times to be a graduate’ and ‘something will turn up’. Except for my reflection, which would either give me the finger and run off, or start poking at my newly acquired, Heathrow-Injection-beer-fuelled belly.

So for a long time I felt splinched between my plan (get a job) and my new plan (forget about getting a job, have fun). In an attempt to find a common sense answer to my splinching, I did what any sensible person would do: decided to try and work for free...

Books

2011-04-28T04:55:00.000+10:00

Call me a nerd (do it, I don't care), but I miss my books.

And my room. I miss the coffee table Steph and I made by inflicting a massacre onto mum's old table.

I miss my inspiration boards, and my nook.

But of all the books I miss - my old ones, my vintage ones, my trashy ones - the one I'm missing the most at the moment is my Norton Anthology of Poetry. You can see it's sister (Anthology of Criticism) tucked into the bookshelf below. Whether we were going waterskiing by the river, or I was just going to tan by the pool, for some reason I'd always throw the anthology in my bag along with a bunch of magazines. I liked knowing I could dip into it at random, revisit an old friend, or find a new one. Anyway, a bit random, but that's what Im thinking about - I want my old Anthology, it's weight slippery in my hands, the thin pages, carrying the weight of the Bible. Reading poetry on the computer just isn't the same.

Lest We Forget

2011-04-27T23:24:00.000+10:00

This is the first Anzac Day that I've been overseas. And while in the last few years there is no way (I'm sorry to say) that I could be dragged to a Dawn Service, it still felt strange that this year the day passed by so quietly. No plans to go to the RSL, barely sparing a moment to pause, not within earshot of a news snippet of a lone trumpeter playing the Last Post.

But still, this myth of Australian identity, forged out of one massively fucked up battle, on a beach in a strange land, shouldn't be forgotten, no matter what corner of the world you are in.

Flowers for the forgotten soldier, Pere Lachaise.

Picnicking on Primrose Hill

2011-04-27T23:18:00.000+10:00

Picnic on Primrose Hill. Vintage skirt from Glebe markets. Friendship from London. Blue sky from Spring.

single in the city, yo

2011-04-27T07:29:00.000+10:00

"You're lying in bed. There's a string of fairy lights hanging from the wall that casts a distinctly romantic glow across the room. You're thinking about how single you are. You know how single you are (which, on a scale of one to relationship, is really single) because you sleep with your MacBook on the pillow next to you."

Kat George. You sum up my life.

Being single in a big city... thank you SATC for tainting all possible reflective moments into one Carrie Bradshaw-esque self-indulgent murmur. I may not be in Manhattan, but I am in North East London. I don't have a window, and I'm craving a cigarette, but I do have a glass of red wine. My cousin's spare room is not a studio apartment, and my tights, flats and woollen cardi do not an ensemble make. BUT, it is a vast improvement on Sydney. For instance: Excluding my current glass of red wine, my last few drinks have been cocktails in Saint Germain, Paris, and bottles of Chilean white wine on a picnic blanket on Primrose Hill. Within hours of each other. While I miss evenings of Coopers Green and Pure Blonde, it makes for a nice change. A bit more of the 'city', even if it's lacking in the 'sex'.

However, being single in a big city? I sleep with my mac book next to me. I once hated the smug little glowing light fading in and out when it was on standby, back in the days when I had someone to snuggle. Or at least someone to plot some well-executed nagging at, as I thought about what I had to do the next day. Now, it's a comfort thing, those smooth plastic lines, and that pulsing glow that I can time with my breathing when I can't sleep.

I've had some funny stories with men. Boys. Boy-men? Males? I don't really like writing them out here, because I don't know who reads it and I am the chameleon queen of self-censorship. I've had experiences that have made me want to punch particular men, and a week later figure out a way to punch myself in the face instead (stupid, idiot girl). Ahhh, dating. Ahhh, experiences. Ahhh, that rapidly expanding memory box that I only squeak open to shove the latest 'experience' into, before slamming the imaginary lid shut with an 'Ah well' and an 'I'm never going to think about that again'. Until I can't resist telling the story to a girlfriend over a bottle of wine, laughing and nearly crying at the thought of being a future cat-lady or baby-stealer, depending on my mood.

It's an interesting road, coming out of a long term relationship that still feels unresolved (hells, does that sentence even mean anything?!). Moving on, staying behind. Endlessly discussing and daydreaming and forgetting and remembering. Learning to let new people in, pretending to be someone else. It's weird. I'm still figuring out who I am, both in relation to, and without, that person.

Over here, there are all sorts of new kisses: the drunken, the should-have-just-stayed-friends, the dancefloor delirium, the mistakes. The down-right hilarious. The stories. The googling. The next day text messages. The hilarious breakdowns with the girls. And out of all this, I think that the best part of being 'single' in the 'city', whatever city that is, has got to be the girls. And whether they are new girls that I've met over here, or recounting to my girls back home, the serious fun of dating, and not-dating, of despairing and hoping, is sharing and laughing and crying and getting persnickettedly drunk in trying to figure it all out. So I guess I am a bit of a Carrie Bradshaw cliche after all. Groan.

*This has been a bit of an experimental post. I want to write more, and worry about not writing less. We'll see how it goes.

Determined Storm

2011-04-24T08:09:00.000+10:00

I can't remember the reference for this pic, sorry!

2011-04-23T07:46:00.000+10:00

Silk Zimmerman dress, H&M lace shorts, Sam Edelman Zoe boots, and a new found resolution to steer clear of extraordinarily tall basketball players.

Off to Paris...

2011-04-22T06:36:00.000+10:00

DrinkShopDo

2011-04-21T06:33:00.001+10:00

Sorry it's been a while people. Sometimes I feel like I'm too busy living life to actually stop a minute and blog about it. And then there are times when I feel like I want to turn to this blog to rant and whinge and be all emotional and ... well ... emo. But then I stop myself, either from a desire to preserve the impression that I'm having So Much Fun with my life, or to prevent a whole bunch of people asking if I'm alright. Then I make up blog posts in the shower, or at work, and get home and watch The Mentalist or read a book, and poof! Weeks gone by with nary a joie de vivre post, an emo post, or a procrastination from life post.

Well that's all about to change. For a day at least. Here's a 'I did something totally fun and amazing' post. And apologies for the iphone photos.

Who can spot the spider? The room is huge - it was an old Victorian bath house apparently.

www.drinkshopdo.com

A little cafe/bar/shop that has themed knit nights, scrabble Sundays, and kitsch furniture (y'all did know I was a bit of a nerd right?). Add in some cucumber sandwiches with no crusts (Oh, Algernon!), mid-afternoon cocktails, and royal memoribilia and there's no wonder you have to book a table for this place.

Jo, my very lovely friend, discovered this place and we repaired there one Sunday afternoon ostensibly to play scrabble, and inevitably to drink cocktails and gossip. Having bragged left, right, and centre about this , Lucy and I popped in for Friday drinks. Without the forethought to book a table, we ended up leaning against the bar, and had a great time ogling all the amazing homemade cakes while slurring out travel and work stories over a bottle of wine.

The premise behind is brilliant because of its simplicity:

The relaxed vibe is deliberate. "I'd always dreamt of having a design shop," explains 25-year-old co-proprietor Coralie Sleap, "but in so many of those places you feel you have to be quiet and not touch. I wanted a shop where you could get drunk and make things." (see full article here).

You can get drunk and make things. And also buy things. Everything in the place is for sale, including the bar. If I had money, or a house, or even a permanent room, I would have been making off with at least a cake tray. Which would probably have been used as a jewellery holder, but hey.

Until then, I plan to take my recently re-acquired knitting skills, and hit up their Tuesday night knit-nights. Or get a bit hedonistic at the Friday night dot-to-dot disco. Google it.

If only I could import my uni girls to London for an afternoon of dot-to-dot disco. You know who you are.

Bleeding Pens - A Solution

2011-04-07T20:06:00.001+10:00

So browsing around the interwebs, as you do, I came across this ingenious little thing - a journal bandolier! Not only does it have a dashing name, it marries together forever your pens and your journal. I totally wouldn't carry around 16 pens if I knew I had at least 4 (for different pens depending on my mood) attached to my writing contraption.

Nifty.

Cleverhands from San Francisco, you certainly are... visit her Etsy shop.

2011-04-07T02:17:00.000+10:00

It is National Poetry Month, and the Poetry Society (or you can follow them on Twitter) asked people to tweet the line of poetry that made them fall in love with the art. Mine was John Donne's:

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

- Batter My Heart, Three Person'd God.

I picked those lines because they were the first to pop into my head, yet all John Donne's poems for me represent that moment where you realise that poetry isn't just rhymes and rhythms, limericks and funny words. It is puzzles and constraint and wonder and cleverness. Explaining The Flea to a friend while we were both somewhat under the influence is one of my best memories - the look on his face when he realised the breadth and expanse of the idea and the argument wrapped up in those lines was priceless.

Anyway, I was reading other people's tweets, and stumbled across one which lead me to this poem, for reasons obvious. And I wanted to share it, so et voila!

Perhaps the earth is floating,
I do not know.
Perhaps the stars are little paper cutups
made by some giant scissors,
I do not know.
Perhaps the moon is a frozen tear,
I do not know.
Perhaps God is only a deep voice
heard by the deaf,
I do not know.

Perhaps I am no one.
True, I have a body
and I cannot escape from it.
I would like to fly out of my head,
but that is out of the question.
It is written on the tablet of destiny
that I am stuck here in this human form.
That being the case
I would like to call attention to my problem.

There is an animal inside me,
clutching fast to my heart,
a huge crab.
The doctors of Boston
have thrown up their hands.
They have tried scalpels,
needles, poison gasses adn the like.
The crab remains.
It is a great weight.
I try to forget it, go about my business,
cook the broccoli, open the shut books,
brush my teeth and tie my shoes.
I have tried prayer
but as I pray the crab grips harder
and the pain enlarges.

I had a dream once, 
perhaps it was a dream,
that the crab was my ignorance of God.
But who am I to believe in dreams?

 - Anne Sexton, The Poet of Ignorance

Bleeding Pens

2011-04-06T07:40:00.000+10:00

I always carry pens around with me - I have ink stains on the inside of every handbag, bleeding marks on headscarves that have been caught in the line of fire tumbling around whichever enormous Mary Poppins contraption I'm currently hauling around. One time I counted 16 assorted pens in my bag. By any standards, that's ridiculous. I was doing a handbag clear out the other day and I came across a heap of scrunched up papers upon which I'd scribbled random thoughts down on, so as not to forget them later. Though judging by the below samples, the so-important words are either song lyrics, shopping/to-do lists, or random scribblings of my own name.

But I never can quite bring myself to throw them out. Maybe one day I'll remember why I scribbled these thoughts down, and suddenly make sense of myself.

As for that last scribble - I know I listened to this nameless song on my ipod about 30 times over, scribbling snatches of lyrics to google and find. It is Belasco. The song is 'Walk the Moon'.

Tapping things out on the iphone just isn't the same. Though my Notes section is a delightful mishmash of recipes, addresses, club names, and drunken ramblings while at live shows. But I think I'll stick with my pens, ink stains and all.

Again Into The Breach, I Blog

2011-04-06T06:15:00.001+10:00

Once again, an abandoned blog... Shortly after my trip to the Rag and Bow pop up shop, my camera wound out of battery, and I was forced to acknowledge that I have a true gift for losing chargers that is matched in a perfect inverse to my ability to buy them after realising the loss.

BUT! Today is a change. Boom, I just bought one. Thanks ebay. I feel slightly virtuous, but I think I'm only desperately trying to compensate for the fact that I'm eating brownies for dinner. And seeing as how I justified not going to the gym with my determination to write a blogpost... may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. There's no real excuse for the vodka tonic though. That's for funsies.

So what's been happening? (And yes, a wordy wordy post with minimal pictures)

WELL - spring is starting to glimmer into London with the occasional day that is so surprisingly mild you wonder why you're carting your coat around. Though these are quickly obliterated by a day or two of rain and wind, as if Spring was the cantankerous old man who lives in the house on the corner - the one with the heart like mushy caramel, hidden over with spikes of 'hurrumphs' and grizzly stares.

I am making excited summer plans that include the words: sister, south of France, hire car, painting, tans, baguettes, Italy, Lisbon, and mix tapes. The ice tinkling merrily away in my glass is just as excited as I am (is there a better noise than ice popping? Except for pop rocks? Didn't think so).

I am doing an absolutely shit job of finishing this post. I keep getting distracted by The Hairpin.

Perhaps not such a wordy post, and one more worthy of MySpace, but hey, if I don't press 'publish post' Right This Second, I probably never will.

Laterz.

Rag&Bow

2011-03-10T09:31:00.001+11:00

On Saturday I spent a delightful few hours at the Rag and Bow pop up vintage store at Paradise by Way of Kensal Green. I met up with the lovely Lucy at Gail's, in Queens Park for granola. Oh Gail's. How you make me happy, you and your artisan breads, and your amazing coffee.

We then wandered down the road to Kensal Rise, with the aid of one street sign, and totally unjustified sense of direction. Needless to say, we got lost, and I'm sorry to report, but the Blackberry trumped the iphone this time round, in summoning up some Google mappage. But hey, you get lost, and you get the first sign of daisies and daffodils in random parks and commons, rows of terraces curving gently around the street, and amazing florist shops that are exploding with the promise of spring and the French countryside.

We did make it there eventually, and my oh my, I think I've found my new favourite pub. Paradise by Way of Kensal Green. Every light fitting was some gorgeous vintage setting. There were stuffed birds in glass cages, and speckled mirrors, and creaking stairs, and old paintings, and leather bound books.

There were atriums, and and hanging bouquets, and shifting sunlight shafting through windows, sending dust motes spiralling around amongst tables waiting with candles, and shining bars with urns full of blooms.

And then, of course, there was the vintage.

The absolutely stunning Hazel of Rag&Bow was super friendly, and the whole concept of a pop up vintage store is just awesome (and I clearly love superlatives). Definitely check out their blog to find out how the concept came about. They even do vintage parties, where they come to you, and you can have a whole evening of playing in vintage clothes... amaze.

As much as I love clothes, I can't actually say I like shopping that much. I'm what I would call an accidental shopper - capable of knowing in an instant what I like, but only able to execute this judgement when I'm not actually planning to shop. Places like Topshop and Zara, though amazing, scare me. So! Many! Girls! All! Trying! To! Buy! The! Same! Thing! And the changerooms are hot, and people are waiting, and the price tags are non-negotiable... blergh. Don't really like it. Vintage shops, op shops, and markets, on the other hand? Perfect for the accidental shopper. Everything is basically a one-off. There's the adrenaline of grabbing what might be cool, or might not, and diving for the nearest bathroom/corner/curtain to try it on. Racks of clothes that are full of potential and personality, demanding attention and a sense of fun.

So I came away guilty...

I'll showcase the wares in another post. Yes, this post is a gratuitous photo post. Suck it up. Before I sign off, however:

While I haven't done in an outfit post in like a million years, I did snap these in that old trusty self-mirror-shot style while trying on some amazing old dresses.

Shirt: Levi, thrifted from Paris

Jeans: Wrangler

Leopard print scarf: thrifted from Portobello markets

Enough from me, sleep well kittens.

Litter ... my body with chains

2011-03-08T09:01:00.000+11:00

Want want want.

Litter SF

Janz and Cooper

2011-03-07T20:34:00.000+11:00

Not only do Janz and Cooper have one of the best websites out there (Amelie-esque music, dreamy models moving, everything that is so much more than overly edited, brightly coloured editorial style), they make some wicked sunglasses.

I'll take these:

You should also check out their blog here, which not only has press clippings that highlight Janz and Cooper's quiet but sure move into style must-haves (installation space in Harvey Nichols, anyone?), and a few sightings of the glasses on some tres stylish peeps, nut an insight into both their creative process and manufacturing ethos.

Want. Want. Want.

Animal-ipstick

2011-03-07T08:30:00.002+11:00

For Traceybee.

The incredible Paige Thomspn's Animal-ipstick series. Her work can be found here.

(via Refinery29)

Macaroons, Not Gym

2011-03-07T07:14:00.000+11:00

Sometimes in London I get so caught up with thinking what I should be doing - going out to clubs, galleries, drinking with friends, that I never really just relax into living here. On Friday night, I was half resolved to go into Trafalgar Square for World Book Night, but decided to stick with my original plan of heading to the gym. At the point of exiting the tube and walking in the direction of the gym, my footsteps found themselves heading straight on home. A glass of wine, slippers, and some Ellie Goulding later, I was not sorry. And decided to make macaroons instead. My lovely cousin took the title of chief assistant, and those are her pretty circles made all over the tracing paper.

They weren't perfect, but they were fun to make! And surprisingly easy. Besides, tastebuds are blind. We made one lot of chocolate filling, and one raspberry. Mmmmm, tasty!

So many thanks to the lovely Jaymie, of By Jaymie, for emailing me the macaroons recipe. The fact that she scanned the recipe and emailed it over after one little comment about how I'd love to make macaroons is probably the reason I love blogging and the blogosphere as much as I love sticky sweet things. Thanks Jaymie!

Six Of One

2011-03-07T06:30:00.000+11:00

My favourite piece of the Orozco exhibition was the Obit Series 2008.

A banner like series of prints depicted phrases from obituary notices. Just five or six words, summing up an entire life. Some were eccentric, noble, humbling, funny, odd, sad. I scribbled a few down on my map, though I wish I could reproduce them properly, because the font type and size added meaning to each fragmentary phrase:

'Eccentric, Even for England'

'Introduced Top Sherpa to Everest Climbers'

'Lived in Two Worlds, White and Black, Both Bitter'

'Versatile and Volatile Star'

'Spelunkher Who Kept a Secret'

'Gave Dictionaries to Children'

'Movie Idol Noted for His Physique in Loincloths and Togas'

'Ballerina With a Comic Touch'

'A Percussionist for Victory'

'Whose Bottles Mapped the Ocean's Currents'

'General's Widow'

'A Poet of Depth and Haunting Vision'

'Villainous Pro Wrestler'

'Spy and Tennis Star'

'A Dreamer'

There were so many more. So many poignant, odd flashes of lives lived and lost. Who was the spelunker, and what was his secret? How villainous was the wrestler? What is eccentric, even for all the oddities of England? Which philanthropist gave the gift of words to children? All these questions, the answers to which are only going to be found in our own imaginations.

It reminded me of one of my favourite sites, which I forget about, and rediscover every couple of months: the Six-Word Memoir over at Smith Mag. They encourage people to write, in six words, about love, life, happiness, being a teen, being a mum, etc.

My favourite is reading the love memoirs. It's amazing how poignant some can be, how much heartbreak, joy, wisdom, sadness, despair can be expressed in just six little words.

'Note to Self: ignore head cases'

'The cure? Wear red lipstick tomorrow'

'Yes it's the truth, I lied'

'Quit obsessively rereading your letters. Progress'

'Get out of my dreams please'

'I still compare everyone to you'

'And then I married him anyway'

'Met, loved, married 46 years. Alzheimer's'

'Dog approves. Maybe this guy's good?'

'Hearts clubbed by diamonds in spades'

What would your six word memoir about love be?

Gabriel Orozco

2011-03-03T09:25:00.000+11:00

On Sunday I meandered past St Paul's down to the Tate. In the lovely rain, without an umbrella - which seems to be the story of my life. I don't know whether it's optimism, forgetfulness, laziness, or a refusal to be inconvenienced, but I just have never seemed to get the knack of carrying an umbrella.

Anyway, coffee makes even damp feet ok...

Going to art galleries is one of those things that, in theory, I love. That I want to do. That I spend my time doing. The disturbing truth (sorry, hipster cred), is that as much as I talk about it, wish it, and make definite plans to do it, I can count on one finger the amount of times I had been to an art gallery before moving to London. Luckily, I now need both hands, and can name drop galleries in Paris, Prague, and London. And I am surprised at how much I really do love going. It's amazing to see how much effort goes into appreciating the art, especially when the art world can seem so far away from the real life work-coffee-wine grind that sweeps my weeks into months.

Making the effort to see Gabriel Orozco's exhibition at the Tate was one of the best things I've done since being in London. A lovely work friend had mentioned she'd been meaning to see it, so we made a Sunday afternoon of it.

"For me it is not so much what people see in the show, it's what you see after ... how your perception of reality is changed ..." Gabriel Orozco

Orozco's works are many and varied, and range from playful, to morbid, with a teeny bit of artistic pretentiousness along the way. One of his works is an empty shoebox on the ground. When I do that, it's called mess. Plonk it in the Tate, and it's art. Go figure.

Another ... strange one was First Was the Spitting 1993, which were his doodles surrounding a spit of toothpaste on graph paper. Another, Ventilator 1997, involved toilet paper tied to a circular ceiling fan. Which admittedly did make pretty circles.

He really does pull your perceptions of space and function and force you to think about what is art. Just because an empty shoebox is in the middle of the Tate Modern, it is suddenly art? I guess it questions the assumption that there is inherent value in both art and normal objects, and what kind of value we attribute to each.

Some of the best -

Lintels 2001.

This was made using the lint formed of skin, hair and fabric that accumulates in the filters of drying machines. Ozorco collected it from laundromats in New York, and hung them like clothes on a washing line. Our first reaction was a bit of a snigger at those laundromats handing over the greyish blue lint balls. But hung up in this white space, the pieces of lint looked like torn, moth eaten clothes, and brought the desperation of concentration camps and poverty, and empty lonely detritus. Scraps of cloth barely enough to cover the absence of a body. This connection between the forgotten fluff and skin that accumulates in our machines of industry, and this feeling of forlorn death was thought provoking to say the least.

My Hands Are My Heart 1991

There was something striking about these images. You could also see the lump of clay in a glass box. His hands shape this clay, and he offers it to the viewer, and it does, somehow, resemble both a heart and the lungs that surround it.

Yielding Stone 1992

We all walk these streets, and step on drains, and crunch leaves, and impress ourselves upon our surroundings, but imagine if we were impressed upon? I don't think I could handle it. I don't think humans have the resilience of clay.

Breath on a Piano 1993

Just beautiful, and transient. A moment disappearing after the breath has already been and gone.

And my very favourite, the Obit Series 2008 I am saving for another post later.

Sorry for the ignorant arty diatribe. Go and get some culture into you...

Jason Wu + Tommy Ton

2011-03-02T08:27:00.000+11:00

It's been a while since I had a good stalk through the loveliness of Tommy Ton, where I found these images from the Jason Wu Fall/Winter 2011/12 collection. Jason Wu shot to prominence in dressing Michelle Obama.

These look amazing, all workmanship and craft, dreaming and history, dusky pink lips like a half-faded rose, netting and lace, feathers, intricate details, and spiky gold heels like solid stalagmites.

The lace work looks so light and airy, yet it's dense enough to cast shadows, covering the models faces yet making those same faces more part of the workmanship than usual. Against such flawless skin, the lace looks like tattoos - wildly beautiful face tattoos that are not remotely primal.

It covers and reveals at the same time, all patience and modesty and daring, and just loveliness.

TommyTon

KB

2011-02-28T05:07:00.001+11:00

SHE JUST MAKES IT LOOK SO EFFORTLESS.

WhipIt

2011-02-27T05:05:00.000+11:00

Good things achieved today: Went to the gym.

Bad things achieved today: Went on a rambling blog-walk, and got so disheartened at all these amazing new blogs I discovered. Seriously, I would like to come across just one blog to look at, and decide it is not worth my time following. For my sake, and the sake of my blogroll/google reader/blogger list/tabs opened.

Anyhoo, saw Whip It the other day. Directed by the ever-amazing Drew Barrymore, who absolutely killed it in this Alexander McQueen dress at a premiere for the film:

I adored the film. A lot because I think Ellen Page kicks ass. But also because of:

Underwater kissing scenes

Dip dyed hair

Juliette Lewis looking hot and bad ass and wearing the best leather backless bodysuit

Sitting in the sun on the hood of a car

Freckles and best friends

Boys in bands

Love heart fridge magnets

I Want The Good Wine

2011-02-24T06:32:00.000+11:00

How's this for a statement?

via the lovely Sandi, writer and go-getter extraordinaire at In The Thick Of It.

2011-02-23T18:59:00.000+11:00

Working with Julie Andrews is like being hit over the head with a Valentine.

- Christopher Plummer (aka Captain dreamy Von Trapp)

blogg-eh

2011-02-22T06:54:00.002+11:00

There are lots of reasons why people start blogs:

* They've got something to say

* Everyone else is doing it, so they'll find something to say

* To have a little project on the side, to ease the realisation that post-school and post-uni, no one actually gives a rats what you think about anything, outside of giving '110%' to what's listed beneath your job description

*Insert a trillion other reasons here. There are some freaking weird blogs out there on the net

Most blogs, I find, start with some sort of a manifesto. A justification for being so self-indulgent and narcissistic as to actually self-publish one's own maudling/inspiring thoughts. I kept the start of my blog quiet for a long time, and then gradually mentioned it to a few people, who always wanted to look at it while I backpedalled trying to claim I'd forgotten my own url. Then one day I decided to fuck it, and put a link up on my facebook. The positive response (for the most part) was just lovely. There were a few people who still didn't understand, and that's fine. I posted this diatribe about that.

Then meh... inspiration-shmashion. Blogged off and on. This started out as a bit of a style blog, but I didn't have a proper camera. Then I bought a proper camera, and every now and then would balance it precariously on a bookshelf, or a chair on top of a table, and take those bloggy photos of outfits. Then I roped my little sister into it, lacking the artistic boyfriend so necessary. Then I moved to London and felt silly posing in other people's houses. I decided I'd take it back up again when I bought a tripod and a remote. Then I put on a whole bunch of weight, and to say I was uninspired by my wardrobe (yes, even in the land of topshop) is an understatement - when nothing fits, clothes are hell.

Besides, all those blogs I'd been following for years? Well, most of them are now semi-professional or professional bloggers/stylists/superstars. And it feels so intimidating to pretend I know about clothes. Which I've never claimed to. My tastes in blogs are changing too. Sure, I love dipping into the old favourites, admiring their amazing clothes, and shoes, and wondering how they can afford it all. My twitter feed is completely clogged with London Fashion Week postings. But I'm starting to really love blogs with more narrative strength behind them - I follow a few book blogs now, and am completely obsessed with anyone who cooks and takes pretty pictures of their kitchen adventures. I think what I love about these narrative style blogs is the sense of an insight into other lives being lived. Other accessible lives. Of people daring to put themselves out there on the big wide web for something they love to do - be it writing or photography, or being a mother, or craft. Because I don't (and probably won't) ever get around in 5inch heels all day. I'm sitting here in tracksuit pants, pink fluffy slippers, and an old red cardigan for heaven's sake. Distinctly unglamorous.

So here are a few of my (mostly) non-fashion related, new favourite blogs and sites, and some of them I'm even proud to know in person.

The Hairpin

The Amanda Diary

Ivy League Insecurities

Enjoying the Small Things

The NookBook

The Coveteur - which was The-Coveted for a wee bit of a furore there.

Fizzle Out

Make Bright the Sparrows

Reading, Fuelled by Tea

Thought Catalog

All different sorts of blogs/websites. And this is only the teeniest sample of the trillion amazing and different ones out there. I really have like a billion more favourites too. I should really update my links section.

Would love to hear what your favourite blogs are!

And the odd-er the better (odd as in, can't figure out why you like it).

Monki

2011-02-22T00:46:00.000+11:00

This summer, when it arrives: floppy hats, sheer oversize mini dresses, button shirts to tuck into shorts. Denim bras to double as swimmers. Oddly-lengthened hems.

www.monki.com

This Swedish brand doesn't sell online, to my frustration. May just have to plan a trip to Stockholm with an empty suitcase. I love the playful way they style their clothes in Monki-world. They take what at first seem like really practical separate pieces, and layer and puff and combine them into a very cool outfit:

Mmmm, Sweden.

David Koma

2011-02-21T22:25:00.000+11:00

He's killing it at London Fashion Week today. Here's a little reminder of what he's doing for Topshop in his capsule collection.

Amaze.

David Koma for Topshop.

Yes:

And please:

Will update with pics from his show when they come out.

2011-02-21T00:58:00.000+11:00

Kinda wish I'd gotten through winter rugged up like a Jedi shepherd, in patched up woollen leather and hoods and oversized draping.

Alessandra Marchi

star-eyed girl

2011-02-21T00:02:00.000+11:00

Frida Gustavsson

Vogue UK 2010

Of things.

2011-02-20T12:27:00.000+11:00

I think I have lost my camera charger. Again. What is wrong with me? It's all this moving house I guess...

In the meantime, here are a few things that have gotten me through this long British winter:

Walks in parks, and slipping fingers out of mittens long enough to snap photos of frosty ground.

Tea sets in a pattern that I hope is willow-ware, because I have always wanted to drink tea out of a set that I'm sure Anne Shirley would have felt a reverence for in her freckled 12-year old heart.

Pastel-lolly houses in rambling Notting Hill streets.

Cocktails, on fire.

Red wine and candlelight in Shoreditch pubs, with antipasto plates, and conversations about poverty, hipster boys, and blogging.

Planning on getting back to Paris.

Dreaming of sunshine, and afternoons spent in Alice-in-Wonderland-esque chairs.

Adele

2011-02-19T23:35:00.000+11:00

I have tea, I have grey skies, I see buildings shrouded in the mist that is also rain.

And I have this on repeat.

But I'm not unhappy.

Lonely rain.

2011-02-19T20:35:00.000+11:00

While thinking about whether to scrap or keep this blog, change the name, start again, give up altogether (oh, no more guilt!), I took a little trip through my own archives, and came across this poem I posted about here and I thought I would re-post it, because I now know what February rain is.

It's lonely.

The Rain

All night the sound had

come back again,

and again falls

this quiet, persistent rain.

What am I to myself

that must be remembered,

insisted upon

so often? Is it

that never the ease,

even the hardness,

of rain falling

will have for me

something other than this,

something not so insistent -

am I to be locked in this

final uneasiness.

Love, if you love me,

lie next to me.

Be for me, like rain,

the getting out

Robert Creeley (b. 1926)

2011-02-19T03:12:00.000+11:00

Listening… to Ellie Goulding. She reminds me of my darling friend Marion, whose sunshine and optimism, and absolutely irrepressible sense of fun always lifts me up. Also new friends in London: bonding over chats about boys and clothes and diets, while creaming scones and cutting breadrolls in a little cafe in Putney.

Reading… Oh! Everything! Middlemarch, by George Eliot. I have a lot more time for Dorothea this time around. The first time I read this, I just thought she was mad. I've also recently finished 'White Teeth' by Zadie Smith (excellent), 'The Birth of Venus' by Sarah Dunant (really quite good), and 'The Virgin Suicides'. Actually, I didn't finish that last one... I don't have the heart at the moment.

Watching… The Good Wife. Boardwalk Empire. Gossip Girl. The Princess Bride.

Buying… AsosAsosAsos. Damn their next day delivery, and my weakness for post-lunch online shopping.

Wearing... Crochet knit tops beneath pinafores. Brogues. Tights.

Wanting… To fit into my jeans. Seriously, I've gotten through this entire British winter in tights. Brrrr.

Trying… to relax and go with the flow.

Loving… not Valentine's day, I'll tell you that much.

Writing… Not much, to be honest.

Inspired by… I'm not, at the moment. How's that for brutal honesty.