BEAUTY SCHOOL DROPOUT

The Saliva Kills It

2010-07-06T04:51:00.001-07:00

Just watched this on the PiX zine blog. WOW.

Nobody Knows I'm A Lesbian

2010-07-01T16:46:00.000-07:00

I think I’m in love with Audrey Horne. In case you don’t know who that is (and might I just interject, WHO’S JOSH GROBIN? KILL YOURSELF!) then you really need to watch Twin Peaks. She slinks around in tight sweaters and below the knee skirts trying to get the attention of Agent Cooper who is as inscrutable as he is heroic (very). She has a habit of calling everyone by their name, repeatedly, and she acts before she thinks. She also has her own theme music. She is pretty much sexy defined.

‘Sexy’ has been on my mind ever since I took a plane and was forced to read Cosmopolitan for the duration of takeoff. Cosmo chatted to four LADS from Luton (probably, I can’t remember) who each had their own unique take on what made a girl sexy. Whether it was large boobs or blonde hair, they all knew what they wanted, and heaven forbid if the girl talked too much or was successful in work “successful chicks are such ball-busters”.

I don’t know what I was expecting from Cosmo but it was about one hundred times more damaging and ridiculous than I could have imagined. Top on the intriguing list ‘21 Things Women Can Do That Guys Can’t, were, wait for it, getting pregnant and looking sexy while holding fruity drinks. And things we were instructed to do before we died included ‘Buy a pair of shoes you can’t walk in’, how’s that for ambition?

Anyway, if like me several fuses have just blown in your brain because this kind of stuff is actually IN PRINT, in 2010, then maybe you should take a leaf out of my book and relax; Audrey Horne style.

To be continued . . .

Beyond my Means

2010-06-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

Nothing is going right. I work night shifts in A&E and apply for an average of four, far more glamorous, jobs a day. Would I like to work at the Serpentine Gallery? For the Royal Shakespeare Company? For Vogue? YES, Yes I would. And I think, somewhere in my subconscious I already do.

How else can I explain the fact that I live so far beyond my means that I can’t even see them anymore? I blame television. And literature And my youth. Ok, I blame the television and literature of my youth. No one ever told me that life continued after high school; Heartbreak High and Saved by the Bell went on and on, how was I to know that my life wouldn’t be a similarly rolling rostra of cast members and hilarious jokes? How was I to know that things could get harder than having a crush on Zach or Drazic (shh!)? I think one of the graduating class from Saved by the Bell went on to be in Show Girls, and Screech made porn. These aren’t role models, what was I thinking?

As for literature my printed diet consisted of Evelyn Waugh and P.G. Wodehouse. Both writers deal in the farcical trials and tribulations of the upper middle classes, being out of work is a lark, having nowhere to live is a jape. And sooner or later an aunt or drunk Colonel will bequeath you a tidy sum and we will all live happily ever after. If I am to follow the example of P.G. Wodehouse (and he’s got to be a better leader than Screech) then all I need to do is get myself a job as a gentleman’s gentleman (that’s butler to you and me) in a large country house, the rest will follow. I grew up still believing that most people, out in the wide world that I hadn’t yet been granted entrance to, had valets and butlers and maids. I suppose these roles now come under the blanket umbrella of the p.a., or worse still, “assistant”. I can’t bring myself to do it, Wodehouse would never have written about assistants!

Perhaps I should just see how far I can push it and get myself a butler.

Putting my cat on a leash

2010-05-24T03:12:00.001-07:00

It's gotta be done.

I will let you know how it goes, unless she runs under a car, in which case I will be crying into my keyboard and there will be no more typing for me, ever.

Beauty School Dropout

2010-05-20T03:18:00.000-07:00

“Your future’s so unclear now, what’s left of your career now?”

I didn’t go to beauty school, but I’m beginning to wish I had. At least after four years of beauty training I might have some demonstrable (and billable) skills. I could paint your nails, curl your hair, I could probably wax and tan you simultaneously (I’m good with my hands). I could do old fashioned things like sets, waves and rinses; I would know the difference between cuticles and follicles, and that knowledge would keep me warm at night (looking good never goes out of style). As it is I went to university, got two degrees and am more or less unemployed. What’s a little more frightening is that I am more or less unemployable.

I can talk to you about the implicit sexuality in James Joyce’s Ulysses but I don’t know what an ISA or a hedge fund is. I know that computers work like knitting (two stitches, inordinate patterns) but if you ask me to format a spreadsheet I will probably faint. Why, dear reader, am I so jobless? Because I swallowed the line they fed us in school; hook, line and sinker. Just like Carey Mulligan, I got myself invested in “an education” That is, education for educations sake, and the belief that there is something noble and worthy and good in learning itself. Reader I was wrong.

There is nothing noble about the job centre, and the less said about trawling in pound shops for other people’s birthday presents, the better. I want some skills! Skills I can make evident with my hands! I want to be able to fix your spark plug, re-set your knee and paint you a mural. Which is why, I’d like to announce my formal withdrawal from ‘education’, and my induction into apprenticeship. Not the ‘Lord Sugar’ type but the plumber’s mate one. I’m here to learn, and then I’m here to be paid for what I’ve learnt. In cold, hard cash.
Taking a leaf out of P.G. Wodehouse's classic novel for the financially challenged Leave it to Psmith here is an advertisement for my services. Pass it on.

Ed will help you.
Ed is ready for anything.
DO YOU WANT
Someone To Manage Your Affairs?
Someone To Handle Your Business?
Someone To Take The Dog For A Run?
Someone To Assasinate Your Aunt?
Ed will do it!
CRIME NOT OBJECTED TO
Whatever Job You Have To Offer
(Provided it has nothing to do with fish)
Leave it to Ed!

Job Interview

2010-03-22T08:57:00.000-07:00

What to wear?

Something that makes me look like this?

As intelligent and hard working as this?

My time off has given me the chance to reconnect with my Spotify. New loves:

Julie Doiron, Sparks and Ann Margaret.

Who wants a job when you can have Elvis?

Gossip Girl Here

2010-03-09T08:41:00.001-08:00

Can We Get a Rewind?

Gossip Girl is back. But after the mid-season, not-quite-a-cliff-hanger cliff-hanger you might be needing a recap. I’ll take you through it Gossip Girl style, you don’t have to thank me, I know you love me, x o x o.

Spotted, a shadowy stranger was seen putting flowers on Bart Bass’s grave. But wait, aren’t those Chuck’s mother’s favourite blooms? Looks like there might be another woman in his life now, be careful B.

Speaking of blooms, love stories have certainly been blossoming. But haven’t we heard this one before? Nate loves Serena, and Dan loves Vanessa . . . didn’t it used to be the other way around? I guess there’s no going back from a ménage a trios with Lonely Boy . . .

And what about Little J? She looks like she’s got it all, Queen of Constance at last, but we hear she’s trading in more than courtiers these days. Let’s hope she doesn’t fall while she’s getting her kicks; we don't think she'd look so good in an orange jumpsuit . . .

And who am I? That’s a secret I’ll never tell.

This is hillarious.

Funny things that happened to me today

2010-03-05T07:14:00.001-08:00

With thanks to Annabel Wigoder.

Why the Stylist makes me want to write a hit list (or, Dawn Porter what were you thinking?)

2010-02-24T07:26:00.000-08:00

This week Dawn was rallying to the call of her inner feminist. Her inner feminist used to be her outer feminist but then she got a boyfriend and her external skin sort of shrivelled off like a snake. (I suppose for the purpose of this metaphor, her inner feminist is now lying somewhere in the corner of her cage gathering dust.)
Dawn’s inner feminist (her inf) was upset when one of her gal pals confessed that she was considering breaking up with the man of her dreams because he didn’t earn enough. Her pal was understandably upset because she loved this hapless bum and in every other respect, “he was perfect”.

Right now I’m imagining Jack from Titanic. Handsome, charming, a little rough around the edges but he scrubs up well in a borrowed tux so who cares?
Everyone, apparently cares, especially your mother. (I think if my mother had lined up Billy Zane for me and I was making spit balls and steamy windows with Leonardo Di Caprio she would be annoyed too, but I digress.)

Dawn’s pal definitely cares. The option here then is between The Perfect Man who earns less than you, or The Imperfect Man who earns more. WOMEN! If you value a man on the strength of what he earns then he is more than entitled to value you on the strength of what you earn, or what you look like. You want him for money? Really? Then you deserve to end up in the life boat with a coat over your back watching people drown from a distance.

Dawn was shocked and appalled, she immediately wrote to her boardroom babe friend who, she thought, had it all worked out. This pal however was just as depressed as the last one. She hated being the main breadwinner for her family and was sorry she’d ever thought otherwise. This woman had loved her position as she “never felt beholden” but now she just wanted a bunch of flowers that she hadn’t “essentially paid for herself”.
What pains me is that Dawn, once again, seems to mumble incoherently as she says absolutely nothing. Surely what needs to be said is that a) love conquers all! If you love him, you love him. And that b) you are equal entities, you should be treated equally and treat him equally. Embrace the fact that you live in a society where women at least have the chance of bridging the wage gap!

I’m not saying money is bad, just that it has very little to do with character.
If Titanic has taught us anything it’s that the rich man will leave you chained to the sink on a sinking ship. If you marry him for money, it’s only what you deserve.

TOPSHOP AT LONDON FASHION WEEK

2010-02-22T07:14:00.000-08:00

In which I remember not to derelict anyone’s balls. (Apart from yours Davy Crocket)

This Saturday the devils paid a visit to the Topshop Unique A/W 2010 show. The catwalk was decked out like an unfriendly forest and guests were given handy survival cards to take away with them. I’m not sure how useful a ball point pen, pair of tweezers and magnifying glass would be in a fix, seems more like a school trip survival guide. Quick, somebody pass me a light emitting diode now!

I have always thought the children’s nursery rhyme entitled (innocuously enough) ‘The Teddy Bear’s Picnic’ was pretty dark. ‘If you go down to the woods today, you’d better go in disguise’ is nothing short of menacing, because you know what will happen if you don’t, you’ll get eaten. And it won’t be tidy. Because ‘every bear that ever there was is gathered there together because, today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic.” You are that picnic.

The Unique collection made me feel a little like somebody’s lunch. The characters on the catwalk were hunters, and they would fist fight you for your gloves. Beaver and badger head hats sat atop vast bushes of crimped hair that just screamed fire hazard (perhaps that was what we were meant to do with our magnifying glasses…?) Faces were terracotta and muddy and the models all walked from the pit of their stomachs. The clothes were hardy, rugged, and there were one too many leather straps for my liking.

It looked like

It sounded like the theme from Peter and the Wolf and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

It tasted like apple and rhubarb, champagne and mushroom mush. Very forest floor darling.

Celebs we spotted: Nicola Roberts looking very beautiful and Peaches Geldof, looking very bedraggled.

HIP TO BE SQUARE

2009-12-21T12:45:00.000-08:00

It isn’t hip to like the Rumble Strips. They’re the kind of band your mother would invite over for tea because she thought she’d seen them looking your way at church, or because they were on their way to becoming dentists. And in a way, she’d be right. The Rumble Strips are a band who would do right by you. They’d clean up after supper, talk to your father about football and never show up with dirty finger nails. But what Mummy wouldn’t realise, and what Daddy wouldn’t dream of, is that the minute their back was turned, the Rumble Strips would be giving it to you, hard, against the kitchen sink. So don’t let their barber shop quartet, butter wouldn’t melt demeanour fool you too, this band are pop punks and they ROCK. Last Thursday’s Rockfeedback Christmas show at the Lexington saw them ripping up the floor and jittering up the ceiling. We danced ‘til our feet were sore. Lead singer Charlie Waller sings with a wide operatic mouth and the face of a particularly expressive mime artist. The audience fell a little in love, hypnotised by his bulging eyes. Catch them on New Years Eve at the Stag’s Head in Hoxton (just don’t tell your mother.)

Rest your ears on these:

Sad City
Back to Black
Not the Only Person

Is it right to love little people this much?

2009-12-08T01:34:00.000-08:00

Telescopic worlds and stories in city streets.

Telescopic worlds and stories in city streets.

http://little-people.blogspot.com/

IT'S NUN TIME

2009-10-21T02:48:00.000-07:00

When this band formed it must have sent tremors of earthquake proportions through the musical world. If there were a Richter scale for band conceptions (a kind of musical pregnancy test) then this one would have been off the charts. As we all shed a genuine tear over Stephen Gately into our crunchy nut cornflakes it is a comfort to know great music is still being pioneered and performed. I am of course talking about a band almost godlike in their brilliance, THE NUNS.

I am almost too jealous of their idea to write about it but then I have to remind myself that they are spreading a gospel and proselytizing to the uninitiated masses. They truly are missionaries. The Nuns are an all girl six piece who only play MONKS covers. Sacre-mental or what?!?!!

In case you don’t know, the Monks were a rebel, revolutionary, rock and roll band formed in 1964 by 5 American GI’s stationed in Germany. They cooked a voodoo stew of trailblazing tunes, the likes of which have not been heard since. Until now. This means London, that IT’S NUN TIME! Do yourself a favour and save your soul in the process and get to see Bongo Debbie and Granny Andrea O’ Saintly Bells put Maria Von Trap to shame. Playing at Ryans Bar in South London on November 7th and at the Bull & Gate in North London on December 4th.

It should be noted that whilse browsing for images of nuns I came accross a ridiculous amount of nun-porn. Because wimples really get guys going right?

Jumble Crock

2009-10-02T04:22:00.001-07:00

Crocodiles vs. White Rabbits at table football? Rad

But the tables on the ceiling? Double rad.

The animals of farthing wood are cheering from the sidelines? Rad overload.

New Brixton trend shop ‘The Rest Is Noise’ is pretty much rad on toast. It’s a bit like those wine gum ‘Randoms’ adverts, but cool. I’ll cherry pie your antelope then Jamaica the leftovers. It’s like someone opened a charity shop in Brooklyn, collected all the hipsters rubbish for a few days then brought it to Brixton where it got mixed with grime and reggae and the dance floor from that Pulp video. It’s like your granny playing space invaders on acid.

On Thursday we caught scuzzy punk faces ‘Oh Children’, tasted mini burgers and swapped ducks for punch. We also overheard girls in the loos talking about ‘the crack shop’.

VERMIN

2009-09-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

RP/VERMIN LAUNCH PARTY, 17TH SEPTEMBER, BETHNAL GREEN ROAD

Reid Peppard's new taxidermy accessories/art adventure . . .

The collection seems to tread a tightrope between the prim and the primal. Flesh torn from flesh juxtaposed with whiskers, minutely and painstakingly arranged. Rubies studding a rats tail, a pigeon’s beak gulping down a pearl.

The most striking (and we hazard most wearable) piece is a pigeon wing head dress that designer Reid Peppard wears after the show has worn down. After the stress of the press party, after the plinths are demolished, she looks like a ravaged Hellenic beauty, war torn, defiant.

The head piece is redolent of the winged sandals worn by Hermes, god of boundaries and the travellers who cross them. With her ‘VERMIN’ collection Reid could be seen to be one of his followers, a psychopomp who flits between this world and another, one foot in the river Styx, one foot in the underground station.

The elegance of the collection is countered of course by the grotty greyness of London, pavements, chewing gum, pigeons, granite skies and tube dwelling mice. Instead of taking the ubiqutous route master as the symbol of London or the archaic and hamburger faced Beef Eaters (weren't they the mascot for floundering food chain Wimpy's?), Peppard has taken the pavements and the gutters themselves as emblems of the city. And the effect is beguiling, she has transformed the way I look at 'leftovers', detritus and "vermin". With her fantastic goodie bags (complete with mock up mouse-trap and surgical gloves) she encourages us all to look closer, to lower our gaze and to get a little grimy.

CNN clearly think she's ace,

check out their London fashion week picks
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/09/18/ctw.connector.reid.peppard.cnn?iref=videosearch

House Hunting

2009-09-07T01:00:00.000-07:00

Which means finding somewhere bigger than a sandwich carton to sleep and live in. And falling in love with retro carpets and teeny kitchens. I now daydream about window boxes and scrubbing brushes (all of the places we've seen need bleaching).

Tally Ho! The hunt continues.

WHAT CASSANDRA SAW

2009-08-26T07:25:00.000-07:00

All is not well at the department of shadows, slip ups have been occuring, mistakes are going unchecked. Cassandra Demeanor, a child who likes to bake and knit, a child who does not play with other children does not notice anything unusual. And yet, when she wakes in the night, and tip toes downstairs, didn't her shadow have a tail? Weren't those ears pointed upon the wall?
The department of shadows is in chaos, an emergency meeting is held in the space between the wall and the kitchen cabinet, and Cassandra puts her eye to a peep hole at just the wrong moment . . .

'What Cassandra Saw' is being shown in cinemas now as part of the Virgin Media Short Film Festival. It was made by Gareth Lilley and Karen Penman. They unite Tim Burton influences with some of the Might Boosh's more bizare characters (anyone remember Charlie the chewing gum gangster?) and the effect is uncanny, spine tingling in the most physical sense of the word, dark and dastardly. Jilting stop frame animation, mice and knitting needles, a lonely little girl and a dark secret, I want more!

watch it here http://www.littlenobody.com/theavclub/whatcassandrasaw.html