Monday 28 February 2011

Souvenir de Bruxelles.



1) Lindemans Pecheresse (I like beer, when it tastes like peaches).
2) Biscuits in a pretty tin
3) Caramel truffles from Neuhaus
4) Postcard from the Grand Place
5) Tintin book (it took me forever to choose which one).
6) Hergé postcard
7) Beer mats
8) Postcards from the Atomium

Je suis fatigué.

Thursday 24 February 2011

Belgique chic.

Some people might say that I am enjoying reading week a bit too much considering it's my final year at Goldsmiths. And I would say to them, "Shhhush and look at this pretty map I made of Brussels!"




I wish I had done this before all of my holidays, it really helps to centre all the messy plans and ideas that float around in your head before you leave. I think I will probably do so from now on, so thank you for the inspiration. Now, I need to stop typing and start packing. Then to Sarah's. Then to bed. Then to Lille! Au Revoir.

Provinces.

Squeezing this week's postcards in before I go away.



Monday 21 February 2011

World's gayest ninjas.

Warning - nerd alert! nerd alert! About once an academic year, it seems, around exam and essay time in particular, I have a tendency to get really, really into iplayer. It is - I hope and presume - a standard human reflex, grabbing a tiny slice of escapism when the stress builds up. In my case this propensity manifests itself in the form of mild fiction addiction (although sadly it tends to be of the non-literary variety). It's a little bit distracting, but a little bit awesome too.

Take first year, for example. First year was definitely the year of Who's Line is it Anyway? (although I went through plenty of mindless television in my early Loring Hall, ivory tower days). Anyway, there were ten long seasons and I had more than enough free time to immerse myself in nineties improv comedy shows. Why not?

In my second year, I spent a good few weeks drugged up on cough medicine and watching How I Met Your Mother at the kitchen table. It took me most of that time and a couple of google searches ("who iz the mom on how i met your mother, yeah?" Gee thanks answers.com) to realise that the eponymous mother was in fact missing from the show and hence the point of the title in the first place. Nonetheless, two words: Barney Stinson. What's not to love?

More recently my freeview riddled imagination (which subsists on Friends reruns and whatever Dave chooses to throw at it, on its days off) has fallen wildly in love with Being Human. This morning I actually watched the latest episode on iplayer, had a shower and then started to watch the same episode again. What is my life coming to? Why can't I appreciate Moll Flanders and Eugène de Rastignac like I appreciate Nina and George? Why do I spend more time contemplating the nuances of a vampire-cum-ghost relationship than I spend considering the significance of film and cinema in relation to the Surrealist movement? If your response to any of the above is "get out more", which I do not doubt it is, let me just explain that this is the pitiful dilemna that my life boils down to right now: great characters of the 19th century book (useful) vs. great characters of the 21st century box (not so much). Or fighting inner demons (the dark obsessions of Aschenbach in Thomas Mann's novella, Death in Venice), the grey areas of morality (the murder of the pawnbroker at the hands of Dostoevsky's impoverished Raskolnikov) and you know, a little bit of necrophilia (the repulsive Lester Ballard in Cormac McCarthy's Child of God) vs. fighting inner demons (a ghost, a vampire and a werewolf, what more can I say?), the grey areas of morality (if a werewolf kills a vampire, does he sacrifice his humanity in the process?) and, again, a touch of necrophilia (just about any sex scene in Being Human involving the vampire, John Mitchell). I hope for the sake of my degree and my 'street cred', that literature triumphs over television for the time being, I really do. It's just that right now I'd much rather spend my time googling the likes of Russell Tovey, thank you very much.

Sunday 20 February 2011

Thursday 17 February 2011

Keep Calm and Carry Yarn.

“No, I was merely reading the Muggle magazines. I do love knitting patterns.” — Albus Dumbledore


We held the first W.I. crafternoon session at our house this evening and in between arranging biscuits on a plate and struggling to make cups of tea, I whipped out my new Cath Kidston needles and my cheapsy wool and tried my hand at knitting. I am told that I was taught how to knit when I was six or so, but clearly my knowledge of knit one, purl one did not survive the test of time, because tonight I was rubbish. Everybody else went home proudly, with a nice little rectangle of neat stitches to show their mummies and daddies, while I was left with a knotted ball of twine. Even so, I have set myself all sorts of impossible projects (little hats for innocent smoothie bottles, anyone?) in the meantime. It may seem extremely silly considering the wool on needles to wool off needles ratio this evening, but I am in actual love with the knitting patterns on this website. And what self-deprecating English Lit student wouldn't appreciate a Penguin scarf/ mittens combo? Better get practising.

Monday 14 February 2011

Applaud now.

As a 'Happy Valentine's Day' present to myself I made my way to White City this morning and stood in line with a collection of school parties, unemployed people and retired folk, in order to watch Alexander Armstrong's Pointless. I have to admit, I had no idea what I was in for, having applied for the free tickets on a whim, following the arrival of a cleverly worded email in my inbox. "Would you like free priority tickets to see QI?" Applause Store asked. "Why yes, yes I would", I replied eagerly. "Well we'll give them to you", said Applause Store, dangling the proverbial carrot, "if you come and watch Alexander Armstrong's Pointless with us first!" So off to the BBC television studios I did go, none the wiser as to the programme I was about to watch.

Last November, when I went to see Have I Got News For You at the ITV studios, the waiting process involved standing around in the cold until filming began, then spending the next hour and a half attempting to reclaim the feeling in my toes. At the BBC there was a cafe and a shop and a wide selection of The Archers/ Amy Pond-related memorabilia. We milled around with numbered stickers on, comparing sandwich prices, while waiting to be called forth by a lady with a microphone. Eventually, by a process of eavesdropping and assessing the set once I got into the studio proper, I was able to deduce that Pointless was a game show, airing on BBC2 in the late afternoon, which was ultimately a reversal of the Family Fortunes format. Not quite what I had in mind when I saw the name Alexander Armstrong, but interesting enough. We were welcomed to the show by a wonderful warm-up comedian. Wonderful because of his humour or wonderful because of his ability to entertain and placate the moaning audience as the day wore on, I'm not sure, but I liked him a lot. We practised our 'lines' (read: collective noise making abilities) for a couple of minutes before the show began and I have to say, they work their audiences much harder at the BBC studios. At Have I Got News For You all that was expected of us was the obligatory laughter and a bit of light whooping when the credits rolled. At Pointless we had to applaud on cue, ooh and aah when the score counter decreased and cheer hysterically when somebody obtained a 'pointless' answer. In effect, confirming my frequently unvoiced suspicions about the validity of audience enthusiasm.

At HIGNFY the show started, Hislop, Merton and co. appeared, they rattled through a series of questions and humorous anecdotes, pausing once or twice to repeat a muddled sentence or adjust a microphone, the credits rolled, the audience cheered with genuine intensity and the show finished. It was, for all intents and purposes, a fully-formed preview of that week's Have I Got News For You, with some 'Even More News For You' content thrown in for good measure. At Pointless the show started, Alexander Armstrong appeared, the contestants appeared, the autocue broke, the opening was shot and then shot again, questions were asked, answers were given, answers were re-given because somebody missed the no-pronouns concept of the show, scenes were re-shot, the autocue broke again. At one point the set was cleared for a good twenty minutes or so, while somebody ran off to check the dictionary definition of woodwind instrument; the show resumed, then stopped for a further ten minutes, while somebody else ran off to check whether an oboe was in fact classed as a woodwind instrument. Five hours of this jilted filming and the poor warm-up man was struggling to keep people in their seats (they were cold, they were hungry, they needed the toilet - to be fair, their whining was more annoying than the stop-start format of the shooting schedule). By the end of the day our audience enthusiasm levels had waned several knots below wholehearted and with one last, strained round of applause and a conclusive pan of the camera we were released into the cold night air. But you know what? I had a good time and if it means QI tickets in the summer, then it will have been the most worthwhile unproductive day ever.

Sunday 13 February 2011

S.W.A.L.K.

(Snowdon with a loving kiss: a postcard well earned).



Monday 7 February 2011

Mum's the word.


Alongside developing new skills and making new friends, an essential objective of the Women's Institute involves raising awareness about important causes within the community (and further afield), and fundraising and campaigning towards these issues. My first task as vice-president of the Goldsmiths W.I. was to organise the latest monthly meeting and with this in mind I arranged a visit from Health Poverty Action, concerning their campaign, Mothers on the Margin. We met with Sarah Edwards at the Amersham Arms (where my carefully arranged custard cream art caused quite the stir) and learnt about the vital work of the charity, which works alongside indigenous communities in order to tackle ignorance and eradicate inequality within areas of maternal health. It is a long-term project, which seeks to affirm and develop traditional understandings of healthcare, rather than assimilate them and it is a project which the Goldsmiths W.I. is keen to stand behind. Keep an eye out here for fundraising-related announcements (which, if you need an assentive, will probably come in the form of cake) and general W.I. goings-on.

Sunday 6 February 2011

Out of Africa(Asia).




Superbowl.

While we were filling Gabby's new guide book with bookmarks this week in readiness for her sister's visit, we decided to get our Fred Flintstone/Barney Rubble on at the Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes. Located in the basement of the Tavistock Hotel in Russell Square it was filled with all sorts of things I can get behind: halogen lighting, sexy bowling shoes, rockabilly tunes and a Lost in Translation style karaoke room. It is unique within London for its "sleek vintage above lane ball returns", apparently.


We did some hardcore bowling and I came in third, which I'm pretty proud about. I don't usually go in for ball-and-pin related activities - plus, the sides were down. We had pizza in the diner, then we made our way onto the dancefloor to shimmy and to shake and to do all the other dances that those crazy 50s cats did do. (Tell me! Everyone is picking up on that feline beat / 'Cause everything else is obsolete).


I got up early this morning to do some chores (strenuous tasks like buying a dress and picking up photographs) and was just coming to the conclusion that Sunday mornings are the perfect time to go shopping, when I rounded the corner onto Shaftsbury Avenue and realised that everybody in London had turned out for the Chinese New Year celebrations instead (新年快乐). I struggled my way through Chinatown and down onto Trafalgar Square, avoiding pushchairs and fire-crackers and dancing dragons as I went, then struggled my way back up again to meet up with the Flexers at St Martin in the Fields. We tried our best to see the stage and watched some Peking Opera on the big screens, then gave up and went in search of food (pork buns are amazing ♥); 伟大的日子.


Gabby just got back from Trafalgar Square and brought me a fortune cookie, which read, "Something on TV will inspire you to do great things, very soon". I sincerely hope the fortune cookie fairy hasn't been keeping track of my television viewing recently (Teen Mom, Tool Academy, etc.). It doesn't really bode well for inspiration.