Catching up - Travels, Friends, Collections, Art...

Hiya, hope those of you to whom half term means anything - whether kids at home or time off work - have had a good one. We had a couple of days in Brighton, or 'Hove, actually' as the bit we stayed in is generally known, and I'm finally beginning to thaw out. When will we ever learn that February half term is NOT the time to attempt to do family mini-breaks? Still, the Siberian snow flurries coming off the sea-front did give us an ideal excuse to spend a lot of time in our favourite galleries and to make regular cake stops at cafes, which is always enjoyable, and we got to spend some time with our nieces. We took the kids to the Sea Life Centre, which is fun - although given that it's housed in a subterranean Victorian arcade - also chilly. I refused to take my gloves off for long enough to take more than a few snaps of Brighton on  my phone - not particularly surprisingly they all fall into my regular subject categories of street art, cake, and random things which strike me as amusing:

Tape Butterflies outside ArtRepublic gallery by Cassette Lord

More Cassette Lord work near Hove Station

Most of the junction boxes have been decorated by him

{with the council's OK}

Mmm yeah Tea - by Sinna 1

Chocolate sculpture in the window of Choccywoccydoodah

Desiree is that you?

Obey Mr Grey - wedding?? - cake in window of shop in North Laine

Imagine having to explain the theme to your Grandma

u

Insane poodle trainers - not by Irregular Choice, but...Adidas!

Krista - what do you think? Tempted?

Speaking of pink haired princesses, I recently met up with the divine Miss Simmonds for a little jaunt round Camden, which mainly involved gossiping, trying on hats, chatting to knicker makers, buying sunglasses - it was pissing down, obviously, but a trip to Camden without buying shades is no trip at all - and a bit of charity shopping. It was less freezing, and I occasionally remembered to get my camera out.

None of these is Clare

Here she is, next to her faithful steed

Glamorous pants, made by 

Coy. Don't you just love her sparkly lurex frock?

Pretty in Pink in Traid changing rooms

This would have been a great dress if it weren't for all the holes. I think if you're going to try and charge £17 for a second hand home-made garment the shop should at least attempt to mend the several places where it was coming apart at the seams. Unfortunate because it went really well with her hair.

In addition to the cheapy sunglasses I bought some skull print jeans to add some interest to my school run wardrobe, a felt hat from Zara via charity shop for a fiver and a turquoise leopard print vest also from a charity shop. Turquoise and leopard as a combination appeals to me almost as much as the scarf I bought in Brighton - purple! With skulls! Made of flowers! Shame it's polyester chiffon and not particularly warm. I continue to suffer for the sake of rock and roll. 

See, I DO like florals...

Anyway, I don't have photos of this more recent stuff but I have been adding absent-mindedly to a few collections recently so I will link this post up to Magpie Monday - it's been too long. I've got another annual to add to the shelf - a boys' one this time - it's not dated but I think it's late 40s or early 50s, and I also grabbed this mint condition Folio Society copy of The Wind in the Willows for only £2. I'm reading J K Rowling's recent novel for grown-ups (calling it her first adult novel makes it sound like porn) 'The Casual Vacancy' and am quite enjoying it. I didn't fancy paying £20 for it when it came out, despite being a fan of Harry Potter, but £2.50 for the hardback in the Scope shop made it more reasonable. Has anyone read it? What did you think? I must admit to being mildly amused that the central deceased character is called Barry. She must have really cast around for that name!

The Eagle Annual has a story set in futuristic 1997, where dashing space rangers have to do an intergalactic Christmas pudding run!

I bought the poseable artist's figure in a local charity shop, and the Czech glass bud vase from a junk shop. I have about 12 now, I just seem to come across them and they're always cheap. The coloured glass bubble bases look really pretty in the sunshine but a lot you see have stains on the plain glass caused by hard water evaporating. I've tried lots of methods of getting rid of this but haven't found a way yet. The red-headed ladies prints are greetings cards made by Anna at Gold Lion Diaries - she kindly included them free when I bought a print for Boy2's room from her Etsy shop. Nice aren't they? I keep meaning to look out for some little frames for them.

I could have bought loads of art when I was in Brighton, spending time in galleries or museums always makes me covetous. I'd quite like Justine Smith's 'Time is Money', if anyone has a spare grand and a half and fancies getting me a present.

 It's made of the bank notes of each country's currency and looks far better in reality

I've said it before, but I used to really enjoy art at school, I'd love to get back into it. Much as I enjoyed my English lit course, Clare's talk about art college makes it sound a lot of fun, and seeing all the modern/street inspired art at my favourite gallery Art Republic makes me yearn for a big studio, lots of canvas and some spray paint to play with. Mind you, whenever I go to the Tate Modern I'm convinced I can make my fortune with some shop window dummies, old planks and parcel tape so it's entirely possible I am delusional.

Finally my cookie cutter collection has expanded again with these few I couldn't resist on eBay. The owl, spider and er, poodle made an unusual Halloween threesome for a few quid, and I have decorating plans for the martini glass. A triangle of coloured icing and one of those little jelly lemon slices and I reckon the biscuits will look brilliant. [I counted up my collection the other day after making the polar bear biscuits and it now numbers around 80 if you include scone cutters.]

On the subject of cookies, here's some of the ones I made for my boys for Valentine's day - the bra and thong only made it into a grown-up lunch box though, don't worry!

Well I seem to have rambled on for ages, so that should probably do for now. I'll be back tomorrow for Ta-dah! Tuesday, so get ready to link up any finds/makes/bakes/outfits etc that you want to show off!

Lakota x

PS. There are loads of comments I've had recently that I wanted to reply to but I'm still being deluged with spam which Blogger's filter isn't picking up so it's getting hard to pick out the genuine replies. Is anyone else suffering? I really don't want to turn word  verification on.

Nicholas Deadly? Classic books reinterpreted by mobile phone!

I got a new phone recently. It's a smart, um Galaxy android, er thingy with added finger prints. Yeah, touch screen. Great. Another thing besides my children to look smeared and reproachful. Anyway, instead of using my phone like a normal blogger and getting obsessed with making my dinner look like it was cooked in 1973 - I have instead become addicted to trying to make the voice recognition software understand me.

Is this thing on?

Unlike Siri on the iPhone, this voice recognition doesn't do anything as advanced as answer questions. It's merely another way to send texts. You can type each letter, have predictive turned on, 'swoosh' with your finger over the keypad - or, simply speak your message into the microphone. What could be easier? Ha!
[My accent is apparently deemed 'posh', despite my being born and brought up in the Welsh valleys. I don't speak like the Queen or anything though, honest. Think more reader of Jackanory back in the day. But with added swearing.] To my mobile however, it appears I'm as incomprehensible as Rab C Nesbitt is to anyone outside of Glasgow.

So, check out these opening lines to classic and popular literature and see if you can guess what they are. I'll put the answers and the actual extracts at the bottom of the post.

*******

1. "If you really want to hear about it,  miss a thing or pub tonight if I was born, I love child with like, how my pants off I dunno if I have me know what days."

Er, right. This was my first attempt. Sounds like Underworld lyrics. I decide to try again and things go completely Eddie Izzard.

"If you ever set something up for me today as well phone mobile as a child bike hedgehog"

This is not quite how I remember the much lauded coming of age novel about an American adolescent. Let's try an easier one.

*******

2. "Nicholas deadly, of number 4 privet drive, how to say thank you. Super cala fragilis expect involved in a thing pringle mysterious, because it is the deposit"

Ok, so it got the vital identifying address. But the rest was pretty muggled. And I'm sure that's someone else's spell.

*******

3. "University college Superman versus good fortune in London."

This does actually sound like a book precis. Just not the right one.

*******

4. "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again"

Whoop! Success at last. Anyway, you've hooked me with that opening line Daphne, what happened next?

"Sing me a good idea I'm leaving drive and for wireless sensor for the way back to me"

O-kaay. We'll keep your idea on file Ms DuMaurier. Thanks for coming in!

*******

5. "Nuttin much does a hair dye - Eritrean enough in the last few months - even if I had not much is it like this."

Not a book about an African girl's struggle with her unruly locks. But hugely popular nonetheless.

*******

How did you do? It's not just me who has these issues with technology, right? Have you got this on your phone? Have a go!

Lakota x

PS. 3 posts in one week - check me out!
[answers below]







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"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it."
The Catcher in the Rye

"Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense."
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
Pride and Prejudice

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me."
Rebecca

"I'd never given much thought to how I would die -  though I'd had reason enough in the last few months - but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this."
Twilight

Magpie Monday - How to be beautiful

Just a quick Magpie Monday post to show a few books I've found recently. This Warne's Pleasure Book for Girls was published in 1933 and makes a nice addition to my collection. It was £3.00 from a charity bookshop in the Lake District.

What's that Lassie? Gertrude's fallen down an abandoned well?

The stories include 'The Unlucky Hockey Stick', 'Barbara's Speed Boat' and 'The Queer one of the Family' and suggest the usual mix of school shenanigans, high drama and unintentional hilarity.

I also found this 1988 Bunty annual for 40p, which contains a rather alarming story about a group of school boys attempting to obtain their (foxy) matron's vital statistics so they can buy her a new dress. When they're not hiding in her wardrobe, they're 'accidentally' bumping into her so that someone can sneak up on her with a tape measure! It's all a bit Benny Hill.

[click to enlarge pictures]

Finally a few extracts from a book I found at a carboot sale. It's called 'What Every Woman Should Know', and is a collection of clippings from the Daily Mail of the 1930s. 

Liz Jones: how to look snooty

There are plenty of handy household hints -  "sour milk makes a good cleaner for gilt picture frames" - recipes, and indepth analysis of the latest fashions; "blouse jackets are trumps for Autumn". I think my favourite part is the beauty pages though - woe betide the fashionable 30s woman who attempted to wear the latest 'tip-tilted hats' with 'the least suspcicion of a double chin' or with 'sagging cheek muscles'. Charming phrases such as 'bingo wings' and 'cankles' had yet to be invented, but it seems there was no shortage of imaginary flaws to focus on. Do you know anyone who suffers with "that fleshy lump at the back of the neck that is so disfiguring"? If contorting yourself between two mirrors proves that you are indeed afflicted - don't worry. 'It can be eradicated by the right exercise'.

If your face is OK but your figure lets you down - why not take up ice skating this winter? Personally I don't know anyone who puts on 8lbs in the summer which they then  lose in the winter - salad vs stew, I don't think so - but if this is your problem you'll be pleased to know that 'as you skate the flesh is actually massaged away between hips and ribs'.

 

Sadly I don't have much time for daily skating - am I doomed to be fat?

Yes.

Lakota x

Sharing this post with Liz at Magpie Monday and Thrift Share Monday

Don't forget it's Ta-dah! Tuesday here tomorrow.

Ta-dah! Tuesday - Book review - The Wah Nails Book of Nail Art

[I had meant for this post to publish while I was on holiday, but for whatever reason the scheduling didn't work and I've only just realised. So here it is for today - consider my nail art attempts to be the ta-dahs!]

I was kindly sent this book to review by publishers Hardie Grant - it's proved such a popular title that I had to wait for another print run to be completed before I got my copy - but it was certainly worth the wait.

Written by Sharmadean Reid, founder of ultra hip London nail salon Wah Nails - this cute and compact hardback is a little gem if you want to get professional nail art results at home. You'd have to have been living under a rock to fail to notice the rising popularity of nail art over the last few years, and Reid was the driving force behind its transforming nail art from 'tacky and ghetto' [her words] to its current status as fun and fashionable and approved by Vogue.

Following the introduction and a pictorial guide to the 'tools of the trade' used within, the book is mainly a succession of double page spreads - with step by step instructions as to how to achieve each of the 25 of the salon's most requested looks. The models used tend to be a) achingly cool and b) in their teens or early twenties, which is unsurprising but did have the unfortunate side effect of making me feel like a loopy great aunt attempting to keep up with the kids. So no change there then. There are also stickers in the back. I'm a bit gutted I don't have any new exercise books to decorate for the new school year. [Do school kids even use exercise books any more? Maybe I'll stick them on my laptop]. But hey, it's probably not aimed at me. I'm 35. I should be keeping myself busy buying orthopaedic footwear and visiting stately homes.

Anyway, on to the designs. I figured I couldn't really review the book without trying out the designs myself, as if they weren't actually easy to achieve it would be an attractive coffee table book but fairly useless for the non-professional nail artist. I was pretty smug pleased with the way the ones I tried worked out.

Candystripe

This one was super effective and easy-peasy. It got loads of favourable comments.

Bit girly for usual outfits but I will admit to being quite taken with it. Fairly easy to do on your 'other' hand.

Leopard print

I love this one. Easy to do but looks impressive. Someone actually asked me if this was nail wraps and was amazed when I said it was free-hand. Surprisingly easy to do with my left hand [I'm right handed]

Tiger

The book showed the zebra but suggested the tiger colour-way as an alternative.

Not too bad a job on both hands but it's tricky to get it looking realistic enough for my liking.

Shatter

Shatter type polish is fairly fool-proof and available for all budgets. I need to practice the colour mixing though.

Basketweave

You'll notice I'm only showing you an arty shot of two of my fingers. I have ten. You don't really want to see the others. Needs more practise. Cool effect if you can do it without messing up though.

And speaking of those which need more practise, here's a few I haven't attempted yet. I reckon there's something for everyone here.

Total comic book geek heaven. Lichenstein would approve of this pop-art 'Pow!' design

Letterhead

Really not a fan of the 'talon' trend for pointy claws, but the design is pretty genius.

If tattoo style lettering is too tricky to pull off with nail art pens, I reckon a scrabble style font would look just as good.

Double Studs

One of my favourites. Time consuming and high maintenance? No doubt. Eye-catching and awesome? Definitely.

Rock chicks don't do dishes anyway.

Roses

One for the Cath K crowd.

Details: 

Title - The Wah Nails book of Nail Art

Author - Sharmadean Reid

Publisher - Hardie Grant Books

Hardback ISBN - 9781742703206

Price - £9.99

A definite recommendation if you fancy a little bit of individuality on your nails. Or it would make a brilliant Christmas present for anyone who doesn't have an allotment teenage girl.

*******

Sorry for tardiness of Ta-dah! Tuesday (you're all going to show me sensible grown up things like master bedroom repaints and prize winning carrots aren't you?) and for the lack of time I've had for blogging recently. Please don't give up on me - just a slightly tricky time with school holidays and now the smallest starting school. And a deluge of spam on the blog has put me off a bit. [If you need any Viagra I know of at least a thousand people willing to hook you up. It's completely screwed up my email account as well, apologies if I've missed anything - try my FB page if you need me]

Lakota x

The Weekend Book - then and now

A couple of years ago I bought a book entitled The Wonderful Weekend Book: Reclaim Life's Simple Pleasures (by the late Elspeth Thompson). It was what I'd describe as a 'Sunday Supplement' type of book, lovely to read and aspirational, but I'm not sure I'd remembered a great deal of it since my first perusal. However, I was reminded of it recently when I found this 1928 edition of The Week-End Book (first published in 1924) at a car boot for 10p, and I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast the two. Would ideas on how to get the most out of your weekend have changed, or have things come full circle since the roaring twenties?

My original 20s book was actually reprinted in 2006 and is available from Amazon, although rather naughtily none of the information they give makes it clear that it's a reproduction and that all the information is some eighty years out of date! However, I suppose a clue could be gleaned from the quoted reviews - if you were paying attention:

'Everybody is talking about it...I wonder how I ever spent a week-end without

it...It will go with us wherever the Oxford Book of English Verse goes. 

The authors have thought of everything' - Daily Telegraph

'I say! Have you seen THE WEEK-END BOOK?' - Guardian

'The jolliest all-round companion that has appeared in print for many years' - Evening News

Sadly The Oxford Book of English Verse is no longer considered an automatic travelling companion for a weekend away, despite the editors' suggestion that it should be 'carried in the opposite pocket' to their own publication! Indeed, The Week-end Book does not skimp on the poetry, and offers a multitude of lesser known verses, under the headings 'Great Poems,' Hate Poems', 'State Poems', 'Epigrams' and 'The Zoo'.

*******

There is also the assumption that every weekend gathering will end in song, and the scores and lyrics for numerous - now obscure - ditties are also included.  My karaoke obsessed former neighbours also liked to round off their weekend that way, although they never sang 'O Good Ale, Thou Art My Darling'. [This did appear to be the case, however]. My modern book doesn't include poems and songs, but one of the author's suggestions for a weekend activity is to 'Start an Anthology'. She had recently found the hard-book notebook where she collected favourite quotes, lyrics and poetry during her teens, and I like the idea of being your own editor, and compiling a miscellanea that's completely personal - even if mine would have just been full of Pearl Jam lyrics and quotes from Heathers.

Here's the blurb for The Wonderful Weekend Book :

"It's the Weekend!

Forget supermarket aisles, traffic jams and chores. 

Instead, reinstate the tea party, write proper letters, 

celebrate the seasons with local or home-grown food 

and drink, or even take your neighbour's dog for a 

walk. This book is packed with ideas that will help 

restore the balance in your life, reconnect you to the

 seasons and other people, and - quite literally - 

not cost the earth."

Thompson suggests things to do year round - from the unlikely 'learn the ukulele' to the more achievable watching the sunset, and has chapters on 'seasonal pleasures'; filled with fairly obvious suggestions such as making chutney in Autumn, beach-combing during the Summer or learning to knit in the Winter months. She also campaigns to 'Bring back Sunday' as a day of rest and contemplation, and suggests switching off the laptop and going on an email and mobile detox for the day - not a problem back in 1928. Recipes for leisurely breakfasts, plus seasonal delights such as pancakes, Simnel cake, and marmalade are interspersed throughout, whereas the older book has an entire section on what to cook for your weekend guests.The recent 'Slow' revival would wholeheartedly agree with advice that weekend food is excellent when "put on before you go off to tennis or to lazing".

However, nowhere in the 20s book is it suggested that you spend your time making marmalade - the main piece of wisdom I came away with was this:

"DON'T cook and attempt to eat YOUNG BRACKEN SHOOTS because the Japanese do. What suits the hardy races of the extreme East may not suit you"

Oh, and I feel I should share these vintage cocktail recipes too, if only to prove that foolish binge drinking is not a recent undertaking for the Brits:

MR SUTTON'S GIN-BLIND (to be drunk with discretion): Six parts gin, three parts curacao, two parts brandy and a dash of orange bitters

RAJAH'S PEG: A claret glass of brandy in a pint of dry champagne

*******

Camping or 'Travels with a Donkey' (not literally) gets its own chapter in The Week-end Book, and has maintained its popularity since. The respective lists of essential kit are pretty much identical - although a 'tea-infuser' was considered vital back in the day. The Wonderful Weekend Book has a couple of suggestions for games to play in the car en-route to your destination - the older book has an entire chapter on everything to entertain any number of chaps; and whether to be played on paper or with improvised sporting equipment, all are wonderfully complicated and archaic sounding - Tishy-Toshy or Up-Jenkyns anyone? Helpfully, the end papers of the book are printed to allow you to play Draughts at the front, and something called Nine Men's Morris at the back.

There are also blank pages to record your own favourite poems, recipes and games, as well as Favourite Inns and Train Times.

The chapter on first aid remedies one might require on a weekend jaunt is probably the furthest away from what we would recognise now. These days you might pack some paracetamol, and maybe a small kit with some antiseptic and plasters if going camping. In the 20s book the remedies are supposedly all things which you could easily obtain from a chemist without prescription - although these days you'd probably want a pharmacology degree. 

"Good against the Sting of all insects, including Midges and Mosquitoes,

 is the application, with a pencil of camel's hair, of an 

analgesic blended of Acid Carbolic gr.v, Tr Iodidi mx, 

Potass. Iodidi gr.x and Aqua dest ad 3i"

There is a lot in The Week-End Book which is pleasingly tongue-in-cheek, though I have no idea whether a 'pencil of camel's hair' was likely to have been carried in the same pocket as the poetry, or whether this is a joke! 

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As shown by the newspaper reviews from the time, and subsequent new editions, The Week-End Book was seized upon as a marvellous idea and a great success. The modern book was generally well received, although a few reviewers complained that considering the onus is supposedly on 'simple' pleasures - the writer is fairly obviously writing for a relatively monied audience. It's all very well to suggest clothes swaps and buying second hand, but if you're having one of her 'quiet nights in', I did notice that her catalogue of lounge wear suppliers includes Toast, The White Company, Plumo and Celtic Sheepskin - none of which are a budget option. The Primark adult onsie does not get a mention.

Giant novelty head not included

Others took exception to her section on the 'problems' of having a second home - it is hard to have much sympathy, but it's only a small paragraph really, and she does admit that you can only really complain about the travelling/packing/traffic to someone else in the same position. Someone in living below the poverty line in Hackney might not be readily able to afford linen lounging pants from The White Company, but hedgerow foraging, mushroom picking and star-gazing - whilst technically free - are also not immediately easy to achieve if you live in a very urban area, no matter what your financial situation. I'm not sure you can write a book where every suggestion will be practical for everyone, so a lot of these complaints seem churlish to me.

If Amazon had existed in 1928, who knows whether we would also have seen reviewers complaining that The Week-End Book was aimed squarely at the upper middle class. Did everyone have a weekend cottage, or friend with the same? Did everyone have the same expanse of leisure time - unencumbered by household maintenance, or small children who would prohibit the playing of tennis and drinking of cocktails? It seems unlikely, but I like to think so - I just love the glamour of the 20s and 30s. Come and join me for Tishy-Toshy in the Country - I'll pour us all a Satan's Whisker* before the singing starts!

Lakota x


*Of Italian vermouth, French vermouth, gin and orange juice, two parts each; of Grand Marnier one part; orange bitters