In Between Days.........

Why hello Gentle Readers, reader, person who might stumble upon this in a fit of internet madness,

Tis the season for another random blogpost.. As it has been rather a while since my last post I thought I'd start with saying how it's not BLOODY Christmas yet... it's a very confusing time that part where everywhere is getting colder, and darker and then suddenly look up in the sky there are flittering splatters of light flickering about in the moonlit sky.. That's one of the loveliest things about living on a street with no streetlights... besides the inevitable lurking of rapists and cats there is ample opportunity to see the moon peeking out of the cloudy sky above Allerton way... and the stars (the real ones not those silly flashing lights) twinkling in the sky above.. 

As I've toppled off into a little rant on the stars I have decided there is no colour as beautiful as the slightly darker blue that hits the moon over the shadows.. slightly dark light.. weirdly mesmerising. 

And as the days drawn in and I walk home from work (well the bus stop) pondering how I could stop being this boring drone worker and flitter off into a lovely cocoon of artistic decadence and fun the sky is pretty and dark and enveloping. 

So today I came home and smelt the darkness outside on my coat and went and sat in my knickers painting.. yes I have to paint semi nude as unfortunately I've never been very good at keeping myself free from paint stains.. in fact my poor quilt, made lovingly by my mother, has not only green but also red paint splatters on it (small ones but still.. ) and that's only from today... and as I sat in my pants and painted, a lovely bit of alliteration there for you, I watched the rather excellent film, "The Notorious Betty Page",
obviously about the bondage beauty. I was pleasantly surprised at how normal she was. She wasn't a raving sex fiend. She wasn't a maddening whore. She wasn't an air head. She was a religious and experimental young woman with a mind of her own and a sweet little nature. well that's what I got from the film anyway, and you can't make a film that's a lie that's just wrong haha,- her justification of being nude was that Adam and Eve were naked in the garden of Eden,- well until they sinned and then they got clothes. So in stopping getting naked, in being clothed she admits her sins.  Either way the movie made me smile and I was rather enlightened to go and dance around my kitchen, still just in some knickers but anyway, and pose into the extractor fan listening the "Weird Science" soundtrack.. an odd mix yes but a truly fantastic one. 

So I'm broadening my horizons on the strange front having developed a penchant for tartan shoe laces and men I don't know why I fancy and silly staring out the windowness.... I've started watching Starter For Ten for the millionth time and I'm currently wishing I was still at University simply to get on University Challenge.. and meet Paxman.. sigh... 

Thinking David Nichols I've nearly finished his latest effort, a rather too close to home story about two graduates who meet on the night of their graduation and where they are one day a year for the next twenty years.. through being best friends and not talking and being in love.. sigh.. 

Having spent my weekend a bit drunk and being annoyed at Morrissey's apparent disregard for a paying audience and sense of humour (ok flying bottles aren't funny fundamentally but come on you've been performing for over 20 years now... get a grip) I am now going to go and faff about instead.  Is it a bird.. is it a flying flower? is it my hair.. is it anything to run away from no.. none of them.. 

I'm rather ashamed of myself.. actually no I'm not, that I got so stupidly excited about the fact that this week's Observer supplement was the foodie one... Christmassy food and the most amazing looking Chorizo and Chestnut soup.. I'm planning on roasting a poussin and maybe some festive food... (all to the background of the Cure absorbed soundtrack of Starter for Ten) and for some reason I'm finding Alex James less annoying even though he does refer to himself as Foodie Boy, oh dear... Graham Coxon would never do that.. But Graham Coxon hasn't got his own organic cheesy farm or whatever it is Master James, Lord of the Manner has. 

Number one on my christmas list is now an air hockey table.. where this will go nobody knows but fuck it I need to nurture my one sporting talent.. if you've ever gone bowling with me you know I'm a wrist flicking genius with fingertips of steel and vicious fingers of air hockey doom.. 

Just can't seem to win as easily on the Wii.. 

The Remembrance Day Service brought a proud strange feeling of pride and perhaps futility this Sunday.. it's something that always makes me cry.. not that it takes much.. but each year there are less of those solemn and proud men standing by the senataph.. but the young ones are scary too.. Hmm too late to discuss my feelings on war but my strange fascination with World War One poetry has always given me this pride. So I might go to bed and read a Sassoon book that was once given to me on the basis of his name rhyming with Bassoon. an excellent word. 

I'm working on a list of christmas gifts.. homemade cookies and hats and chutneys... I'm working on a mixture of tomato and ginger with a bit of lime.. it might be amazing it might not be but I'd best get started soon.. jars ahoy.. 

so to work away the christmassy blues that inevitably come to someone quite as emotional as I, which sillyly I cry when I'm happy.. silly silly person that I am.. I have mostly been listening to 

Okkervil River's Come back I'm Waiting- a lovely black sheep boy related song about how you can never quite lose things.. Scenic World by Beirut.... enough said... when I feel alive I try to imagine a careless life... contemplating whether it's a valid lifestyle choice to spend all your wages (well a large percentage of them) in the record department of Oxfam... being the proud owner of Nancy Sinatra's greatest hits with Lee Hazelwood, Bowie's Let's Dance (Hurrah!!) and various other great finds (Thomas Leer vinyl in 69A always a fun find) 

Anyway as I'm tired of sickness. tired.. bored of being bored.. and going to be a creative genius. Or just go to sleep and stop smelling like Peanut Butter Cookies... 

Hurrah.. 

xxxx bon soir. xxxx

Where the Wild things.. are. were... continue to be.......raaaar...

Bon Soir,
As the title may suggest I've been listening to some of the exciting and lovely songs off the childishly silly and pretty album that Karen O and the Kids have masterfully created.... It's almost as if someone shrunk Arcade Fire at their perkiest gave them a few more kids toys and some lovely whistling background noise to dance around a camp fire to... sigh... yes I am regressing yet again.. I do believe that is becoming rather a theme of these posts... All is Love is quite extraordinarily uplifting...even for someone who's just come home from a nonsenical day of work in the cold and nothing could melt the hardened cruel heart of such despair.. apart from several small children shouting that All is Love....Yay Spike Jonze yay Maurice Sendak



Hurrah indeed for all is that ... or so you at least believe for the entirety of that song and the time it's stuck in your head (note to self listen to it BEFORE work and I might not get quite so annoyed with stupid people who don't know anything about stupid things..) and also I'd like a cuddle from one of the wild things.... and I know there was always that weird kind of are they mean aren't they.. o well they're just big and cuddly but kinda wrong too.. and that's always a nice razor edged fluff hug..

So life tis going on.. the day doth start and it doth finish .. and time keeps on ticking.. funny that.. and i spend an inordinate amount of time cooking exciting things... well thinking about it and planning it but then feeling tired.. silly.. and flouncing about with my lovely furry coat that I can wear now it's getting to that bitter chill stage of the year.. and it does make any dull outfits I happen upon into some kind of Velvet Underground extravaganza of fluff... it also looks nice against a backdrop of leaves and mulchy goodness of the Autumn Almanac that has rotted on our streets.. yay for Autumn (and I think I"ve already exhausted all my Keatsian references about Autumn in previous posts if that's even possible but you can probably guess what I might quote.. predictable? moi? never..)

Back to the exciting songs I've been listening to.. ( I would go on a usual literary rant but alas.. I've been reading stuff that is not quite as literary as I'd like to admit.. in fact I'm still regressing back to fancying Edward Cullen (eek I know vampires bloody hell what is wrong with me 22year old woman) and contemplating why some people my age have got multimillion pound careers .. contemplating this I was watching The Hole.. a rather freaky film that always reminds me of school.. that creepy long
corridor that we had to creep down to go to the toilet when we slept in the haunted common room that had the story of the girl who had a baby and killed it and shoved it in a suitcase.. eviiiil.. but not quite as horrific as Keira Knightley's bulimia vomit riddled body.. gross..

I"m already planning my exciting new life in America.. i'm a bit scared of the cliches, guns, moose etc. but I'm thinking San Francisco is my new destination... I"m going to set up my own shop and wallow in many vintage scarves..
sigh.. selling knitting patterns to hippies with crocheted bum bags.. hurrah
Right as this was merely a ploy to make me start writing something and be vaguely creative with myself in a non work related way I'm not sure I have a huge amount to write.. but hell I'm going to write something I've been compiling a list of songs that make my lunch break go by nicely... and the journeys home seem rather exciting... even if the man avoided my eyes quite purposefully this morning because frankly he shoved his head in his arm when I looked at him.. strange but endearing.. I'm planning on starting a new club night or something I must return to my um humble roots of djness. yes I wasn't amazing at it but I was enthusiastic and fun... to say the least.. and I think I'm going to blame watching the Boat That Rocked again.. it's stupid patriarchal tendencies (with one lesbian) annoyed me but somewhat didn't overshadow the passion sigh.. How silly is that. I think I just fancy Rhys Ifans far too much for a normal person.. and frankly anyone dancing away to Lazy Sunday with such drunken force is all good to me..

happier songs.. songs to hum to myself whilst sitting on the phone (and to even hum down the phone instead of putting them on hold. I'm working on a new repertoire as we speak...)

So here we go as I have it so far.. some lovely and inappropriate songs for customers... or for me..

1. Whose Got The Crack-Moldy Peaches... You can't go wrong with drug references.. or well maybe you can.. but they rarely fail to amuse regarding silly indie bands and nonsensical drivel... New York city is a graveyard-phone services are also...
hurrah.... Linked article... What a Waster - the Libertines (also sung by Adam Green) ... Save me from tomorrow-o save me from tomorrow -oooooooooo oo no not meeeeeeeeeeee.. Goats and puffy hair.. yay!

nuff said.

2. (If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To- Weezer... a lovely new song by the lovely Rivers.. sigh... I have always had a crush on him.. since I first heard Buddy Holly the glassed up geek chic in his Happy Days ideal world I have thought.. ooh lovely little man.. yup patronisingly. but this is a sweet rather sexy song (if you can believe it) depicting his sexual frustration perhaps or just wanted to snog the face of someone you fancy.. either way. it's sweet. and If you're wondering if I want you to Rivers, I want you to. And if I'm going to stick to my HAPPY SONG motto for today which I'm being forced to do by my own mental will power I shan't go into my lovely Say It Ain't So and Only In Dreams phases.... Dreams eh.. pah.. I might go into that at some other point.. maybe not now... yay Weezer... She is your marrow... quite possibly one of the most beautiful things if not weird metaphorically... oxygeeeeen... and carbon dioxide...
Even discussing Toe nails can be romantic sigh haha...

3. Shoplifters Of The World Unite- The Smiths
I lift the shops of their money? Do the establishments lift the money of the shops? Am I making some kind of weird backwards nonsensical thing up to prove a small point about bankers? no...never.. non niet..Learn to love me assemble the ways.... my only weakness is a listed crime........ well nevermind, nevermind... needless to say it's better than Jeremy Kyle (yes that's what happens if i don't nick the remote in time I am forced against my will to watch Jeremy and his vile freak show of violence and ridicule in the staff room of HELL... ...Hand it over hand it over indeed.... eugh)
I was bored before I even began.......
worth watching if only for Moz's rampant crotch thrusting.. Those were the days of TOTP and thrusting... no Jim'll though..
4. Strychnine- The Sonics..
Mostly cos it starts like the beginning of a Munsters remake.. and some folks do like water, some like wine.. and this dirty dirty filthpot likes the taste of straight strychnine.. and once you've tried it you can't get enough.. seriously.. it's good for what's ailing you.... I'm going to play this down the phone very VERY VERY VERY LOUDLY.... and freak out the old grannies who shout at me... they might think they've reached the munster rocky horror show stylee call centre... where we all cavort in sparkly corsets and thongs whipping each other over the photocopiers?... um no.. no they probably don't have the imagination but I just thought of it.. I feel a bit ill.. and an another note there were some videos of them actually playing this live but it was a sad version from 2008 and I thought nah.. it wasn't quite as loud or virile.

5. Just to be predictable I'm going to put Career Opportunities in there by the Clash.. as well it seems appropriate. it might make people realise that I am just doing my job.. C'est Tout.. instead of shouting "ISN'T THIS YOUR JOB? ISN'T IT WHAT YOU DO? roughly translated as " You are faceless and look silly and my god what do you smell like.. and frankly I"m an absolute imbecile please tell me I'm wrong so I can eat you're guts and get my pound of flesh from the small of your back scraping it with some kind of kitchen melon baller" um... yes so to sum that up The Clash missed a vital job off their list of inane career opportunities.. do you really want to be a cop? um.. sometimes it would be more fun.. as I have extensive outfit planning for work trying to encorporate something interesting into daily life I'm Looking into a job in a rather huge fashion emporium.. yes please. This is the version of Sandinista I think with the little kids singing... sweetly naive and what I'm planning on playing to my new nephew just to get him into punk slowly...
.


List mark 2 coming soon.. but I'm off to the pub. and to eat dinner listening to Grizzly Bear... .. Bon soir.. Sweet Dreams. x

cease the pain of your useless and pointless knowledge...

So I'm having a few issues with my memory on my computer which shall unfortunately make this a rather pictureless blog post as I can't seem to make it do anything.. stupid thing.. 

I just felt the urge to rant.. rave ... complain etc. at some inanimate form of correspondence with the no people who read this anyway... firstly Happy nearly Brigitte Bardot's Birthday (I've been reading the G2 sorry... how utterly predictable)

secondly... I've decided that the furthering of my life is going to go towards a quest I'm going to set myself...once I have some money from shamelessly hanging myself with my bank swipe pass... as I sit in a bit of a state on my bedroom floor as it is a big muddle around me and cry because my printer won't work for some godforbidden reason... I have decided to shed off such shackles of mundane shitness, printers included in that... 

Right my quest.. 

I'm going to go and buy a map of America (later the world.. though that might be even more moneys that I have not got)

and I"m going to map out a big path of places mentioned in Dylan songs.. Pathetic perhaps.. yes.. maybe unoriginal but it's sure going to be a way to travel around.. I'm meant to be going to various places already but frankly I want to go where everybody wait, nobody knows my name... where I can get ridiculously maudlin without pissing anybody off, where I can smile inanely at myself in a corn field for a while with a nice book.. I don't know... I want to be stuck inside of Mobile with or without the Memphis blues... I'm not sure I want place related blues but they do sound rather decadent don't they.... 

Oxford town.. (ok, this one could be potentially closer to home but where's the fun in that.. I like it as a place but it's not the belly of my spiritual enlightenment or any kind of potential fulfilled at that.. I have always felt a fondness for the place.. mostly because of my big infatuation with Sebastian Flyte and the fact that Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews make me want to dance for some kind of joy in my silly little heart...I also felt somewhat rejected by there considering my cleverness, which I'm in no way suggesting isn't apparent, is also not what I think would go down particularly well there, I've far too much leisurely spirit, far too much old school "I'm going to wear a big scarf be damned if I'm sent down this term" etc...sigh)

I"m going to ride on mail trains and have tombstone blues.. and realise it does take a lot to laugh, and a train to cry.... trains do make me cry... I always seem to feel ridiculously emotional on trains.. either too happy or too sad... coming or going.. leaving or wenting... being or nothing... seeing or sleeping doing or eating... writing or reading... falling or spinning.. 

Right now I'm feeling like the sad eyed lady of the well not high or low lands.. and this takes me to my next point that I"m probably in a mess about my entire life because of Dylan.. he created some stupid ideals in my head.. letting me think that romantic ramblings are the way forward... and I'm fucked if I'm going to deny that childhood notion... I'm in the process of making a leopard skin pill box hat.. making a big brass bead.. getting my Lady Chatterly out with a man who's clothes are dirty but his hands are clean.. blatantly Mellors.... ah I wonder if DH Lawrence saw that one coming... a few things I think of when I think of him, Sean Bean, people moaning about the Rainbow, Dylan.... sex..... and washing machines.. yup I ruined a poor old man in Camberwell's washing machine in his launderette because I accidentally put my book through the wash.. the reason I spent the entirety of Leeds festival 2005 finding sex scenes all over my clothes on fairground rides.... 

I can rent a Buick 6 (I"m not sure I can pull of car related puns so that's where that one ends..)

and live the dream man.. haha.. God I would never imagine myself saying that stupid phrase.. maybe I"m turning this into a Springsteen testament tour instead of Dylan's Decadent Day trips or the like. 

Because right now I am tired of myself and all of my creations.. I paint and I don't like them that much.. I look out windows and get annoyed that nothing looks as good as the fucking brilliant skyline outside my window.. a simple row of houses and their chimneys set against a shocking pink striped jet of sky shot out of some New Romantic's sky blue pink Eyeshadow box.... I am getting so aggravated by everything.. watching all these people starting new and interesting things... I'm sick of repetition and tired of everything... and I'm sure I don't really mean that but I'm fucking aggravated.. Shall I leave it at that? I'm tired of nothing.. tired of the fact that nothing looks as good as it is.. or is that the other way around? no matter... I reckon my conclusions should be more drastic.. see I can't even use my own words anymore.. sigh.. 

I would use tangled up in blue.. but David Cameron has somewhat ruined that for me.. as a politically aware, artistic, silly, graduated, supposedly vaguely intelligent, almost deemed slightly sensible, overly emotional, wannabe teenage stroppy git with a foot that's just gone to sleep surely there should be more interesting and grasping things in this world... or I've just not found all of them yet.. 

I'm not sure how much of this is nonsense bought on my ranting needs or just self pitying crap.. I think it's a nice melancholic mix of the two.. and If you've actually read it I applaud you cos there's no way in Hell I'm going to read it back.. 

I'm going to use my own pictures.. that's a good idea... right... I"m going to put in fitting images.. and I'm going to make it some kind of mish mash puzzle of crap.. 

see even now my stupid Philosophy degree makes me immediately think of Kierkegaard when I listen to Highway 61 Revisited.. yup... Abraham and Isaac.. leaps of faith.. hot hunchbacked philosophical sexpots and aw foot's coming back to life.. if only Kierkegaard had a weird whirring noise and guitars that followed him.. everybody always makes him sound a bit mad and I love him... yes his words tortured me for a year but apparently I"m a glutton for punishment... 

If you haven't noticed yet this rather slapdash post is an experiment of Dada like ranting.. I say Dada but I think I've managed full sentences for most of it.. 

Turnip.. the sky .. write the monkeys.. don't eat cheese.. hats are cyphons. eat the moon's light. etc. 

Maybe I should attempt an entirely surrealist post.. 

hmm.. what was my point.. oh yes.. it was that this post has been the product of me putting on every Dylan album I own and as the songs come on writing in context with them.. I like it.. It's suits me.. it's not easter time but I do have Tom Thumb's blues.. or not.. I stole them and ran away... 

They got some hungry women there and they'll really make a mess out of you... 

I think I should've actually written my dissertation now I read this back as it's been an enjoyable ramble... it was going to be the pretentiously titled ... actually no.. let's just leave it at Dylan related.. I might want to write it one day... 

if you're looking to get silly you'd better go back to where you came.. 

This is here because the first thing that came up when I wrote Dylan was Dylan Moran.. and this is a bit of actual genius.. excuse the bad quality of the video but it was the only one I could find.... Thank you for your letter.. your enclosed nasty niminy piminy little note... I am afraid your letter is most unsuitable for me at this time...

And yes I am aware that it is traditionally that it is bad form to reply to any kind of criticism or rejection.... but in this as with all else I am an innovator so I may address you as Piss midget...

"Everyone agreed he was write to kill the publisher, and to do it with a Flugel Horn was a stroke of genius,..... here have this basket of things and come and stay for the weekend..."

OH Bernard...this is what I will undeniably be like when my first rambling crap book novella will be rejected by the likes of those who have no taste and crap into buckets  made from carefully arranged copies of the Financial Times... I am feeling bitter and entwisted towards the world of publishing .. not only can I not get a job there but I undoubtedly will not have any of the nonsense I have pained over published as the nonsense category is no doubt filled with Simon Schama and his silly ideas on historical things... and various things that I forced myself to forget after Dutch History at ALevel... 

knob

yes.. I am aware that that does not really put my standard of vocabulary and wit at the highest point it's ever seen but knob it is and knob it must remain...

Right again my computer is disallowing any photographic nonsense I may adhere to this post therefore random youtube videos a go go.... 

All submitted in 10ft high braille. 

x Good Day x (piss midgets)

This song was not written about me.. apparently....

Sing Me to Sleep, Sing Me to Sleep I'm Tired and I want to Go to Bed.....

So, I'm a working girl now.. 

(I found the picture.. it made me smile)

Alors I am very very very tired... Getting up at 6am is not that fun but it has let me see the morning within a funny new scape of daytimeness. 

Daytimeness is a new experience for me. Well, not entirely new but it is different to my previous slumming. As long as I don't turn into a Ricky Gervais sitcom fodder wet dream (no NO dancing in the aisles between the computers to whatever ridiculous song that Ricky "um.. yeah.. I'm funny.. yeah twat" Gervais is actually pretending to be dancing to. 

As of the signed agreement I'm not allowed to mention ANYTHING about my work.. but I DO HAVE A HEADSET

That is all. 

Well tis not all but tis all I shall say for now.. I do have exciting other things and stuff.. none of this would give away any information of any sort. Vaguely incongruous. 

So as tiredness sinks in and I flounder on the sofa in various states of undress watching the Commitments and mentally forming a band in my head.. I shall write something exciting. I was thinking today of books and films and music that would enliven any dead old working environment (and for the record my working environment doesn't seem that dead.. here's hoping anyway)

So... I attempted to read Tristan Tzara's "Seven Dada Manifestoes and Lampisteries" in the staff room which I didn't get round to reading much but it was beautiful and vaguely nihilistic in a surreal and backward way. 

"It seems that this exists: more logical, very logical, too logical, less logical, not very logical, really logical, fairly logical. 

Well then, draw the inferences. 

"I have."

Now think of the person you love most. 

"Have you?"

Tell me the number and I'll tell you the lottery.  "

Maybe having finished a Philosophy degree you no longer become a philosopher, maybe an Aphilosopher or perhaps like Monsieur A A the Antiphilosopher. I'm not against philosophy per ce but maybe you have to be a bit to fully understand it. Does that sound contradictory I don't know I think the Dada and work systems are getting to my poor frazzled brain. 

This may be a rather muddled blog.. but tis a blog nonetheless and it may also not be very long and full of pretty pictures and videos instead.. 

So I've looked at a book or two and I was wondering what songs might liven the mood up.. So I've been listening to Billy Idol's "White Wedding", and finding Billy slightly too sexy for a weird peroxide haired, leather wearing gimp It might have something to do with Spike. But still.. I'm finding strange things amusing nay arousing at the moment haha..I've also had Video Killed the Radiostar stuck in my head for about 3days... and if you ever need a song to liven up the deadliest of shops (ie. Home Bargains-  ok I lie I love it in there.. Wasabi peas and cheap canvases.. ) made even more exciting by a big blast of Vive Le Rock.. (watch out Rock is going STAARWAAARS)

But I've just realised that having somehow bought the commitments ages ago on an Amazon binge and not having watching it that I've missed out on a rather excellently sountracked film.. and some rather excellent lines.. "Irish are the blacks of Europe" not a bit politcaly incorrect then.. "Bigger than the Rolling Stones?" "Rolling Stones Terry? Who the fuck are they?"

I do often talk to Terry Wogan in the bath... fun bath times with Terry..

The lord blows my trumpet.. 

I'm loving the soul... If you've never been to a Heebies night go and enjoy.. where else can you twist in the world? Where else can you twist better than in a dungeony cavern style club in the moist and dank dampness dancing with the crazies. 

Beatles related shenanigans are still going on in town.. mostly related to the Box set and the Rock Band release ( Which I really really really want.. not that I've ever played Rock Band before.. but I also want the box set.. please if anybody wants to give me £179.... please...)

On a related note I watched Help! the other day .. it was incredible.. I love it.. this is the trailer it's tres amusing.. 

Kalihayaaaaaaa.. Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to have a film revolving around trying to cut Ringo's hands off? Trying to paint him read? Trying to sacrifice him? Letting John have sarcastic little quips? Letting Paul shrink? Making racial sterotypes? Letting the Beatles sing on a ski slope and in various random locations? Who thought of them? a FUCKING GENIUS THAT'S WHO..






I absolutely adored it.. it was the most incredibly funny and heartwarming and sarcastic and even utterly ridiculous film I've ever seen and I adored every second. It not only reminds you how amazing and bloody gorgeous a band they were (I seriously fancy every single one of them ...Though John and George..sigh.. ) but how awful some bands are now.. and makes you wonder if anybody could do any better (and insert predictable anti Oasis quip about how they've tried but failed miserably cos they're fucking awful... ) it all ends in sacrificial madness on a beach how can anything go wrong.. 

I'm going to start a band.. I don't know how or what about but I reckon my lack of talent is wasted on work..sigh.. it's wasted on the world.. and the lack of talent in a world full of shitty talented people and talent shows showing their talent and making dicks out of themselves should stand me in good stead to be spat upon, wrestled to the ground by corporate musicness and sit on the face of the world's shit music.... I have rhythm.. just maybe not any kind of musical mind.. apparently I can't sing (along to Beirut anyway) but fuck that.. 

I'm trying to knit.. occassionally.. but apparently I'm not allowed to wear woolen scarves in work.. which seems odd.. and bit silly especially when it gets cold. 

So my creative output in the last few days has I'm afraid stretched to Dada and packed lunches.. and daydreaming about rude things in the office.. rude things indeed.. 

So in a minute.. I'm going to go to sleep.. and listen to Asleep the namesake for my blog today.... A sad and lovely song by the Smiths (you probably knew that already) and cry a little and sigh a little bit more.. and mourn the death of yet another fish.. woeful.. 

but the lyrics are all too true for a way I'm feeling at the moment.. a certain melancholy that only happens when the sun starts to go down later and Autumn sets in..  o well.. Morrissey you old grump you have made me a cynic before my time and I can never thank you enough. 

So I have been mainly: Starting my sentences with:So

Knitting... my scarf.. at intervals... 

eating.. some rather delicious butcher (not Iceland but proper butcher with included Butcher conversation which somehow made it more exciting) and roast sweet potato roasted with locally grown garlic.. 

sigh

I've mostly been listening to: Beirut.. dreaming of a wistful holiday walking in some Eastern European hills with nothing but a lonely tree, Beirut playing in the distance, as a village slowly goes about it's business with lights burning the darkened sky underneath a cascade of pretty twinkling stars bellowing their light across the distance of a confused lonely sheep. 

This video is utterly my favourite video on youtube.. of all the videos in the world.. it is my favourite (Beirut) song and I can't listen to it without wanting to do something utterly melancholic or Romantic... this is what love and fear sounds like when they've woken up together after a very long car ride in the rain... Zach Condon wanders around the streets of Paris (my favourite place)singing my favourite song acoustically with nothing but the gorgeous lyrics and the street for company and some bemused restaurant goers.. This doesn't include the excellent use of the quotation from La Bete Humaine... 

"Oh non je t'en prie, nous ne sommes pas chez nous.

-Oh je t'assures que ce n'est pas grave.
-Non laisse moi !
-Qu'est-ce que tu as aujourd'hui ?
-Je sais que les hommes me degoutent. Vous ne pensez qu'c ca" (nope men they disgust me too they're always thinking of THAT..) 

I read somewhere that a person thought this was what it was like when you go to meet a lover after not seeing them for hours, days, years.... The worry and fear that something will have changed.. It's been a long time, long time now.. since I've seen you smile... most beautiful song. 

I'm feeling somewhat volatile and crackly.. a bit confused and tired.. a bit sleepy and sad.. and happy and cold. 

A sight for sore eyes tired of contradictions. 

The Working world, does it suit us? Who knows... but a bit of love and a bit of a cuddle can make anything better... and a sleep.. oh and Adam Ant...and Keats..... it smells like this poem outside... 

 

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,	5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;	10
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;	15
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;	20
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day	25
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;	30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. I could talk about it for days but instead I'll just go to sleep and dream about it

NIght night.. xx

Come and Keep Your Comrade Warm.....

Hello again, 

So here I sit drinking a beer and watching the nonsense that is Tom Cruise's ultimate film "Cocktail" and I thought what way could I better spend my time? well um doing this.. obviously.. 

So here I am back again to regale you with not only the excitement (sic) of my life, the wonders and enjoyment.. What have I been doing? Wondering, firstly, how with no real talent Tom Cruise's character got into not only uni, but got A JOB bartending, flaring or whatever... having had no skills whatsoever.. and is now running his own bar in Jamaica (and if it's not his own bar then he's in charge of it enough to fuck every girl there and make cocky comments til the cows go home...)

What is life but a lot of bad '80s movies? sigh. 

Wrong!!! I have had many a time in the last few days watching interesting documentaries.. most notably about Island records.. It was rather enlightening, and saddening that I can't set up my own record label... and get Roxy Music, Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff etc. The Harder they come... the harder they fall apparently.. seems apt... on it.. But anyway a few excellent songs that were on the programme include early Roxy Music,( look at video..... make me a deaaaal and make it straight...) a time to reminisce of times (that fair enough I wasn't alive for) when Bryan Ferry wasn't a twatty fool who fathered some ignorant toffs.. but had amazing sequined coats, a sexy quivery voice and looked like an extra from the glam rock lord of the rings.. (especially with Eno behind me.... he has elf king hair written all over him)


We are flying down to Riooooooo...

Speaking of Eno I have been regularly listening to the lovely and echoing "Strange Overtones" by David Byrne and him... which has a creeepy, nihilistic video .. about oddness, there are strange overtones in the music I am playing I suppose.. I also suppose I like to express something to the neighbours by playing it loud enough for them to hear. but who needs modern nonsense.... more Bowie than now-ie (oo god that was awful)

As on my travels through the Pool of Livers I have found some kind of vague employment (fingers crossed) and I'm not entirely sure what it is doing.. but as the blind leading the blind lamb to the slaughter I shall go forth put my artistic and creative tendencies to one side and maybe try and find some kind of artistic intent in the world of bank related madness..... After said job finding (in unnamed bank related establishment- in these recessional times I think it's best to stay unnamed... boo hiss big banks boo hiss bankers.. boo hisss selling your soul.. boo hiss aaaargh)

So after the walk around town job hunting, (and putting a CV in for work at a boutique that previously fucked me around- beggars can't be choosers) I went to the miraculously beautiful Walker Art Gallery in the centre of Liverpool. If you've never been stop reading now and fuck off there... It's gorgeous entrance hall makes me smile ridiculously and want to cry at the same time as it smells of art, and work and and paint and sweat and beauty.  The first gallery, full of statues, is exquisite, and I could sit in there trying to read the faces of the marble creatures, the gorgeous head of female warriors, Zeus, and the beautiful (with a lovely hat) Cupid in disguise.. Venus, all the classical, grand stone creations about to move, if you'd just watch them long enough.. smiling and weeping... A feeling of utter inadequacy swells and the budding artist in me both at once exhales and inhales... knowing on one hand that this is what you want to do with your life, dedicating it to the pursuit of beauty and light, but also the fact that you may never fulfill any kind of pursuit in any kind of achievable way .. not like Millais or Sickert... 

A tranquil vivacious sea with bathers in it.. a pontism beauty, Freud's sense of snide humour (on his model, Harry Diamond, remarking that he'd painted his legs too short he simply said "They are too short") the mystical and Romantic classicism of the Pre Raphaelites, depicting effigies of Keats' greatest poems, The Eve of St. Agnes, with "purple passion" and "burning Porphyro", the gorgeous Romantic colours, shining a light of a cold, bitter and chilled winter outside through a coloured glass window into the gloomy castle lit only by the young lovers' passion and pure love. Hunt shows the debauched revellers of the castle being passively judged by the young lovers, as they flee hideous captivity in each others' arms.. sigh.. 

Or Millais' heartwrenching Rosalind in the Arden forrest, cross dressing and beat like she's just been ravished in a cross dressed forestry related orgy.. only in an innocent kind of way...
or his Isabella.. all the school ALevel related nonsense goes out of the window and you can try and appreciate the young girls' passionate act of love, even in the morbid nature of Isabella's keeping Lorenzo's head in a pot and the gristly teeth of her hateful brothers. 

and my favourite, if not inaccurate, Funeral of Shelley, (quite apt as our fish named Shelley also died at sea this week.. ) attended by Byron and Leigh Hunt in a brooding, cloudy heartwrenching gathering clouded beach of sadness.

So yes, there I sat in the presence of Holbein's impending doom filled stare of Henry VIII's tight ladened legs knitting and being calm and quiet, in a room filled with Kings, Queens, Ladies, Knights and me.. The heating was broken in the Walker so they apologised for the fluctuating temperatures, but maybe it's some kind of installation, the rooms are of different temperatures, life goes through different temperatures, too hot too cold, or just right.. bored, too bored, too busy or too utterly depressingly saddeningly crushed within an inch of life... either too much or too little.. but strangely the Holbein room was perfect.... I sat and stared and wondered and thought of little of importance and felt happy for a bit.. which was nice.. Gosh I do sound rather maudlin but I promise tis no fear gentle reader.. I was just perchance feeling melancholy, glutting my sorrow if you will.. 

I shall just have to be a wishful artist in the body of a bank assistant... trapped in the blue polyester of the working world, banished of feathers and lights and fur trimmed nonsense items of which I love.  I have to find some kind of way to not sell my soul, achieve some kind of creative satisfaction and live off something.. the impossible dream non? Ceci n'est pas une pipe? Ceci n'est pas une banker.... ceci c'est le dernier de l'idealistic Romantiques.... 

Maybe I'll just buy a big sign like those outside old cinemas and put my own name on it... in various roles... just to make myself feel better.. or maybe just like I've achieved something that day... 

I've had to make do with covering my bathroom in Pre-Raphaelite postcards.. though as I've nicely put before listening to music makes things seem a lot LOT lot better.. as I sit and whimsically paint pictures of those I love, and attempt maybe to detract from the whimsy itself, (but then again maybe I should just chose to embody Whimsy in a painting.. without crying clowns, small children or bubbles... just something whimsical.... Ironically.. Whimonically...

I've dedicated myself to a new scarf however, a short lived but nonetheless entertaining pursuit as I wait for the light to return to my window so I can paint the funny houses across the street.. So enough of the self indulgence really... what music shall I recommend this week dear lover? (sorry house in joke and if anybody in my house does read it then I'm sure I'll get some weird comments at some point) OH yes how could I forget...? The annual get drunk and dance like an old Drunken twat weekend (otherwise known as The Mathew Street Festival) hit the cobbly streets of Liverpool last weekend.. and it was beyond amusing... many highlights included other people making twats of themselves.. If you are unfamiliar with the weekend it is basically a festival with some of the biggest headliners in the world like, ever.... only the tribute version.. (ironically I saw some kids busking "Tribute" by Tenacious D in the Cavern Walks shopping centre.. actually come to think of that it was a rather ironic display all round, as they were face painted and playing drums on the bins) 

Of the bands I saw (only two or three to be honest) I was most disappointed by the silly man who was claimed to be the prominent Bob Dylan tribute act in the world or something silly... he only sang like Dylan (marginally) as a joke.. and sang the remnant of his set in a faux Americana country (cuntry) way throughout.. ruining amazing songs and enducing mass sing song versions of Blowin' in the Wind (with much handwaving) which were at once both horrid and kind of sweet in a mass British summer is over and we're all pissed way.  The only redeeming feature was a brief interlude when the American MC read some Woody Guthrie writing.. about a gorgeous little piece of paper going in the wind, not only travelling through life, and other people's lives... either burning, but being burnt on someone's memory still... 

THE best thing I saw had to be oldish woman, dressed in TIGHT WHITE JEANS.... who at first I thought was line dancing in a vague tarty WI way, but I slowly realised she was doing her much honed Mick Jaggger impression... how one can keep a straight face whilst watching her hip thrusting and finger pointing, all with the pouting and the grabbing young jailbait men to dance with in exchange for substances it was like a stones tribute band in the audience. 

The beautiful city streets do however, have an amazing atmosphere about them at the best of times, it's most definitely my favourite city in the world (maybe on a par with Paris) and the festival turns it into some kind of topsy turvy world. Amusing and a voyeur's dream... Walking down Church street you can see the excitement in eyes of the little (sorry but they were small) Japanese Beatles tribute band, dressed in Mop top outfits fully equipped with groupies, instruments and a Yoko shaped lady friend (a bit out of the time sequence but ho hum)

I've got some pictures to share but my computer is being rubbish so I'll post them at a later date.. but picture the lovely scene, having been hassled by two little scamps (ok they were about 15 but looked 12) to take booze off their hands, (weird and backward) cos they were scared of the fuzz, we walked through the rain, drinking a can of fosters getting suitably drizzled on, stopping only to shelter under a bridge, watching a bunch of charming little skater types sing covers in the rain... Back in the USSR ...

Soggy and disgruntled at having to watch a Kings of Leon tribute band sing Sex on Fire TWICE... (with little 7yr olds singing along in a creepy kind of way) I headed home.. later the sky was beautiful, the moon full and life strange and creeping.... 

Waiting to get my own bar, jump upon the bar telling poems, singing silly songs and find some kind of satisfaction....

What I've mostly been reading:David Nicholl's "One Day" which is awfully sad as it's somewhat poignant that I've yet to do much with my life much like the people in the book.. going from the day of their graduation two people meet, are they going to be together..? who knows.. but there's something there.. what is something who knows eh? but I couldn't read it for very long as it made me more sad than usual.. and I've gone on an amazon binge with my little money and bought a lot of French Poetry, mostly Paul Verlaine, and Dada related literature.  

I've mostly knitted: my scarf .. a delightfully huge and pom pommed yellow and grey mass of softness.

I've mostly listened to:Beatles covers, and silence. Devendra Banhart.Beach House and sad songs.

I've mostly been cooking: roasted stuffed peppers filled with Cranberry Wensleydale cous cous.. sounds ood tastes loooovely.. genius.

I have mostly been doing: stupid quizzes on Sporcle, though I do now know ALL of Shakespeare's plays.... go, waste time.. 

I've also fallen in love with a rather dark and sad painting of Ophelia by Henrietta Rae and found this Rimbaud poem.. enjoy..

On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping

White Ophelia floats like a great lily;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils...
- In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort.

For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia
Has passed, a white phantom, down the long black river.
For more than a thousand years her sweet madness
Has murmured its ballad to the evening breeze.

The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath
Her great veils rising and falling with the waters;
The shivering willows weep on her shoulder,
The rushes lean over her wide, dreaming brow.

The ruffled water-lilies are sighing around her;
At times she rouses, in a slumbering alder,
Some nest from which escapes a small rustle of wings;
- A mysterious anthem falls from the golden stars.

II

O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow!
Yes child, you died, carried off by a river!
- It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway
That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom.

It was a breath of wind, that, twisting your great hair,
Brought strange rumors to your dreaming mind;
It was your heart listening to the song of Nature
In the groans of the tree and the sighs of the nights;

It was the voice of mad seas, the great roar,
That shattered your child's heart, too human and too soft;
It was a handsome pale knight, a poor madman
Who one April morning sate mute at your knees!

Heaven! Love! Freedom! What a dream, oh poor crazed Girl!
You melted to him as snow does to a fire; 
Your great visions strangled your words
- And fearful Infinity terrified your blue eye!

III

- And the poet says that by starlight
You come seeking, in the night, the flowers that you picked
And that he has seen on the water, lying in her long veils
White Ophelia floating, like a great lily.

Arthur Rimbaud

Til then dear reader,

Cocktails and dreams...

xx

"Well Donowitz, I think this just might be my masterpiece."

Bonjour gentle readers,

C'est moi! as you have probably figured.. I've been a rather busy bee and somewhat neglectful of my wondrous blog that I thought now I've got back from my day busy doing nothing that I will um.. still do nothing.. but in a slightly more exciting way.. 

So yes.. What have I been up to? Does anybody really care? haha. I haven't really got anything specific to write to be totally and utterly lost apart from a few creative things I've been up to, and some excellent filmrelated nonsense.... and well... some musical trivia based on the new installment of many many good LPs in my front room now. 

As you possibly remember or know or gathered from some previous posts I'm busy job hunting but I do however, have a job interview tomorrow.. I'm rather excited.. even though I'd possibly be serving my own friends drinks I'm still excited. 

Ho hum... so instead of writing you an exciting long list of songs to listen to on your way to a job interview (a natural progression from songs to listen to when you're jobhunting) I will do that when I've been to the interview.. haha....

To give myself a treat I went and watched Inglourious Basterds.... Go, Now. see it please.. I am not one for Brad Pitt but his excellent depiction of gun happy Nazi basher Lt. Aldo Raine, uncomfortable as it was, was bloody funny.  I have never enjoyed watching people getting scalped, and frankly even though it was the least bloody Tarantino film I've ever seen, it's not bloodless.. a rather graphic shot of Diane Kruger's leg... with a bullet wound... Brad Pitt's finger.... prodding.... ouch.. 

I can honestly say though.. I now have a massively huge crush on Melanie Laurent who plays the Jewish runaway Shosanna Dreyfus who sets up her own cinema in Paris.. the cinema that's the setting for Operation Kino... not only is she incredibly stylishly dressed throughout, in a rather dashing army esque belted khaki number but she dresses like a snazzy landgirl, all practical and yet still rather dishy.. and frankly I'm utterly in love with the gorgeous sparkly black netted hat and red dress she wears throughout the "Nation's Pride" premier, red and splattered with blood... both of which matched her lipstick.. sigh...
all accessorised with a little pistol in a beaded bag in order to fend off the advances of the war hero Frederick Zoller.... played by the equally gorgeous Daniel Bruhl (of "Goodbye Lenin").. who embodies a weird paradox of Nazi guilt and pride for killing hundreds of soldiers from a tower in Italy.  Shosanna made me jealous, obviously not the cruel mass murder of her family under some farm floorboards by Hans Landa the double crossing "Jew Hunter", but the somewhat stereotypical shots of her smoking, drinking and reading in a French cafe just look rather brooding, pouting and well.. a lot more darkly interesting than my life.. but you probably already realised I was a Francophile by now... 

The Basterds themselves at first made me feel almost sorry for these specific Nazis as a small platoon is surrounded by leering vigilantes, not something I'd ever think I'd find myself saying, but in the context of men hunting each other, they ceased to be quite so Nazi ish and just seemed to be a man being beaten to death with a club by the "Bear Jew".  Of course, immediately Brad Pitt asks the man what he won his medals for, for killing many people, and for bravery.  Pitt's cockiness at first was really rather annoying, and his American mob mentality just made me want to smack him, but he suddenly gets all the funny lines, and his incapacity to speak Italian is always amusing. .. but the humanity weirdly seems all but lost in all the characters carrying guns, but their strange facades make for interesting plot twists... Landa's double crossing, the basement brawl with the new father Wilhelm and the death of the Diane Kruger's Fraulein Hammersmark as she is slowly strangled to death ... life dripping out of her eyelids.. basically it's a lot of Tarantino nonsense, even including Tarantino's foot fetish in a long close up of Diane Kruger's foot, but would also be strangely amazing if it had happened.. only in Hollywood would the end of the De Fuhrer come through the cinema... I have much more to say about it but I'm not going to give anything away as it's vastly amusing and I recommend it.... 

So yes apart from watching that I've been accumulating rubbish in my room.. when I was younger I used to pick up random items off the floor.. and I nearly did it again today, there was a fragment of a CD with a small boy's face on it on the ground and it just looked so interesting I nearly picked it up.. I know this is how bag lady's begin but I have so many things I love dotted around my life that I've found on the streets, mostly notably the cutest little finger puppet I found on the floor in Tunbridge Wells. It looked so sad that I stuck it on a bush.. but it was still there smiling inanely when I walked past later that I felt I couldn't just abandon it to the local T.Wells louts.. hehe.. so she now lives in my room... all my Adult Books posters have been nicked from the toilets of le Bateau in Liverpool.. If you have been there you would probably think that it was highly unhygienic keeping things from toilets and yes ordinarily you'd be right, keeping posters from the debauched toilets of an Indie club where the levels of cleanliness aren't particularly high, but frankly a poster with the lyrics of Ca Plane Pour Moi and Je T'aime on them were too shiny and appealing for my drunken eyes... so in the bag they popped.. 

I'm deliberating going down the local skip to get me some new stuff.. not bag lady stuff .. though saying that a trolley would be nice... but some random objects of desire.. 

On another note I think I may be going slightly blind.. I am sad that having had the desire to wear glasses from a young age I suddenly actually have to wear them to watch telly... booo.. I look like a rather effeminate Buddy Holly, but that might just be because of the way I dress non?

To amuse myself I've been colouring things in with nail varnish.. not only have I changed my white little pumpy brogues from Primark into a pair of pink and white Zebra striped extravaganza but I've also attacked our doorbell.. yup doorbell accessories are coming to a store near you.. or well maybe a door near you? no just mine.. oh well.. Having had some vague promise of work at a local vintage shop adapting and customising some clothes for the shopkeep I have been adapting mine... not something that's new to me.. for some reason I resent keeping things from shops the same as when I bought them.. I think it might be due to my lack of money (and apparently lack of ethical morals) I shop in Primark.. I hate that I do.. I even stopped myself the other day (only to go to George at Asda.. god help me) but not only am I not buying ethically aware clothing... but I'm also supposed to dress like everybody else who shops in Primark (coughchavscallytypescough) Now I'm definitely one for anti-ageist fashion, I sometimes find the Guardian's weekly feature on various ages wearing similar styles interesting if not a little stagnant, but I really resent buying a pair of black lacy leggings, blaceggings, only to find a 45yr old wannabe MILF wearing them ... over an awful tan, and thinking "Hey I know I'll buy some for my five year old as well"... as I've said I'm not fashionably ageist, I utterly adore how fashionable elder ladies dress, ranging from the undeniably women of a certain age adorning Parisian streets, to Debbie Harry, but most notably people like Zandra Rhodes and Vivienne Westwood, even gulp Mary Portas... (which as much as I resent her for having an amazing job and for almost wearing clothes that the ever predictable and strangely breast obsessed Gok Wan might have picked out (bad) has an undeniable sense of self style, knowing not only what suits her but not giving into peer pressure to dress like an absolute arse-yet still giving herself a nice looking arse-impressive feat). So, as hypocritical as it may appear I resent these women.  I can't decide if it's almost sad that they feel they have to compete with not only younger, and possibly richer, women by shopping in Primark (ie. they haven't got the "young body" to wear most of the hotpants in Primark but still do, and can't commit the equally awful sin of Lacroixing oneself in an Edie Monsoon manner with various labels to try and distract people from your lack of style)... as much as I admit and rather love, nay relish, designer clothing I have never been one for thinking it's even nearly justified in its price.. yup there's a lot of work that goes into it.. and yes there's excellently gorgeous fabric and wonderful cuts that you would never get in somewhere on the high street I feel sad that the exclusivity of designer wear is the whole point of it.. and in being so becomes the complete opposite.. money doesn't buy style darlings.. it buys a stupid amount of crappy clothes that no matter how lovely the cut is will never look right on you if you've bought them for labels rather than style, fit and matching to your body type... I would relish in buying as much gorgeous Chanel as possible but I'm fully aware that Coco's divine little figure, and the ridiculously cool, if not skeletal Karl Lagerfeld, do not necessarily fit a figure as mine.. I'm much more apt for the curvy Nigella figure hugging Roland Mouret styles
, even some gorgeous vintage Dior... and I have found that mostly 40s and 50s dresses fit a figure like mine, when women had waists and were expected to show them off.. 

ooh that was rather a rant... so yes, and don't get me started on some kind of feminist fashion rant.. I can only say I feel empowered by brands like Agent Provacateur and yet strangely seedy by La Senza... that shouldn't be about the money or style. it's simply quality.. and the fact that La Senza screams slut and Agent P purrs seductress.. but why is that? Is there any sense behind it? God knows, I will go onto a much more indepth feminist rant at another time, when I'm not dying to discuss some kind of musical nonsense and knitting I've been thinking about instead. 

Tis indeed nearly Autumn, strangely enough I smelt it, as I have been told by a homeopathist I'm a "smelly person" hehe... and then my ipod told me it was so (I don't normally listen as it's usually telling me to do bad things) with the beginning lyrics of Ryan Adam's "Nuclear".....'This is where the summer ends'.... sigh.. so onto knitting some lovely scarves and listening to to warming songs... I like to knit with some kind of distraction, usually a tv or a record.... and today I noticed my lovely first scarf I ever made.. a blend of acidy green, yellow and blue stripes.. a bit raggedy but loved and excellent.. and realised it's so utterly easy to make scarves... so I've got to encourage it... my first ever one (which was the attempt before the actual first scarf) turned into a blanket.. yup I fucked up the stitches and started on 20 and ended up on 130.... how... ? hmmm.... so yes snuggle up in your scarf... and listen to the Mamas and the Papas' "Do You Wanna Dance?" because it makes me smile... it's the end of the summer affairs, it's the end of feeling warm outside so dance instead... it's more fun than shivering.. this slow and lovely dance song makes you want to waltz around the kitchen in a stylish pillbox hat "Tell me I'm your loverman...."

... 

So I've been listening to that... doing this... something of the other... 

after Inglorious Basterds I've had an incurable craving for strudel (but not nightfire hehe) as they have a great shot focused on this dollop of creaming oozing over a cruncy looking strudelly yumminess.... so I've looked up a recipe for such.... 

Ingredients

100g Golden sugar

seeds scraped from 1 vanilla pod

4 yummy apples... I like a bit of cox.. but I also just wanted to write that (peel and dice your cox ouch)

25g of currants and 25g sultanas

1tsp Allspice, 1tsp nutmeg (I like it grated) 1 tsp of cinnamon (sprinkled on the top)

85g chopped walnuts...mmm 

6 large sheets of filo pastry (you could make it.. or you could buy the other roll up stuff.. it's less hassle but then again I'm a pastry purist sometimes...)

50g butter, melted

a tub of creme fraiche.. 200ml

Heat the oven to about 200degrees c.... and then put the butter and sugar and vanilla pods in a pan and cook slowly until caramelised and yummy and brown... (be careful as this could go quickly from being caramelised to burnt scummy pan nastiness) ... put the apples, spices, sultanas and currants in the pan to caramelise them.. and cook for about 10mins until soft.. and gooey.. remove the apple from the pan, slotted spoon... and then let the liquid and the apples cool separately... line two baking trays with baking paper and lay out the filo on the trays... brush lightly with butter and sprinkle some of the sugar on them.. repeat this on each tray until there are 3 layers of filo each... put the apple on the shorter edge of the pastry and roll them into a log... tuck in the ends to make it a neat parcel... brush the top with butter and dust with sugar.. cook for 25mins or until golden brown.. and crispy and gooey and yummy... 

This is lovely with cherries as well.. cooked in a similar way... but with some cherry liquer instead of caramelising the sugar... but still use the sugar.. 

vehr gut.. (I can't speak German)

Anywho.. I've got to go and eat some dinner having just spilt hot water all down my front and I'm in quite a hideous amount of pain so I'm going to conclude there and watch crappy BBC Rob Brydon related goodness in stinging pain.. 

This week I have mostly been eating: hmm.. homemade bread... bad hot watery noodles with painfactor... looking forward to strudel and many many bananas that I got from the Bold street fruit market in Liverpool (3 bunches for a pound...apples and pears etc)

I have mostly been knitting/painting: still my little baby blanket, and painting a rather dubious portrait of Serge Gainsbourg (it's dubious as his eyes have gone weird and I'm trying to sort it out)

I've mostly been listening to: Grizzly Bear's "Knife"..
(um it's on Skins if anybody was wondering but obviously that's not what I like it.. ) an excellent dreamy little piece; Ca Plane Pour Moi on Vinyl, excellent soundtrack for I Basterds.. .....and Frank Black (of Pixies) and the Catholics "Massif Centrale", a little gem I always forget about, but it's got the creepy air of a French stalker about it, "Sure is cold here in the summer... I haven't got her number".... and there's a bit in the garden.. it's just awesomely loud and amazing... it's the sound of a looove behaviour.. well I think those are the lyrics who indeed knows.. 

Listen and decipher your own..

Bon Chance.. xxxxxx