I love London. I first came as a tourist from Australia when I was 6, then I lived there for reals when I was a teenager, and now, living outside of the capital, I come as a visitor to our fair city. I love the smells, I love the lights, and, most of the time, I love the people. Yesterday I went into town to visit two old friends - one who I've known for 14 years, and one who I've known for 18 - and to try out my brand-spanking new camera. I started off at Liverpool Street, where I met my friend Hen for a spot of market browsing in Spitalfields. I forgot to get my camera out for this one, but this is how it looks...
...unfortunately 'crowd exhaustion' stopped us from spending too much time here, so we swiftly moved on to Duck & Waffle, an amazing restaurant suspended above London on the 40th floor of the Heron Tower on Bishopsgate...
My Bloody (Amazing) Mary
Our precariously-placed table - not one for those with vertigo...
Whilst staring out over London, we munched on a bag of BBQ Crispy Pigs Ears (like Pork Crackling, but 100% better). I had the Duck and Waffle (confit duck leg on a belgian waffle, topped with a fried duck egg and drowned in mustard maple syrup = heaven.), Hen had waffles with cream and berries (d-lish). Here's some food porn...
BBQ Crispy Pigs Ears
Duck & Waffle's Duck and Waffle
Waffle, Cream & Berries
After our waffle-fest, I left poor Hen to go home and finish her ironing and I hopped on the Number 11 bus (the best bus, as all Londoners know). Obviously shotgunning the front seat on the top deck (why would you not), I sat back and watched as St Paul's, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey sailed by me en-route to Chelsea. Whilst I was there, I managed to battle through the hoardes of post-Christmas Sale nutters to pick up a pair of these bad boys to wear tonight...
...before I was off again to Green Park to meet up with my Australian pal Joe, who's over here visiting. We went to Shepherd's Market for a drink before wandering under the bright lights of Carnaby Street over to Soho's Golden Square for a drink in Graphic. After a bottle (or two, it had been a while...) we decided a sensible thing might be to get dinner. So, being practically a London Yoda, I suggested we headed over to my favourite pizzeria in town - Pizza East in Portobello. We sat at the bar, right in front of the chefs and the wood-fired pizza ovens, drooling over everything that came out. We ate garlic bread and drank champagne, before I settled on a Pork Belly pizza, and Joe had one with spicy sausage.
Garlic Bread (not my photo as I ate it too quickly)
Pork Belly Pizza (aka the Mouth Orgasm)
Feeling full and maybe a little stumble-y, we walked up Portobello Road back to Notting Hill Gate where we said our goodbyes. Although not for long - we'll be back for Round 2 tonight! I hope you all have an amazing New Year wherever you are - see you in 2013! Love, Belle x
...Christmas that is. Said in the tone of Mr Montell Jordan in the unforgettable 90's hit:
Every family has it's own ritual, but this is ours. Small as it may be, I'm more than willing to share. So here you have it - the Clare Christmas Extravaganza!
Merry Christmas from Squeaky and Oliver Bear!
Stocking Goodies
Dress: Urban Outfitters
Japes!
Papa C & Moi
Buttered Brussel Sprouts - a Papa C. Speciality
Intense Concentration
Tally Ho!
Sex on Fire.
Look what Santa brought me!
Wherever you are, I hope you had a fantastic Christmas and Santa brought you all you had wished for. Much love, Belle x
Unless you're an 18th century orphan, have been disowned, or are doing Xmas with 'the other half' this year, most of us will be at home for the holidays. While Christmas is essentially a time for family and "sharing the love", we all know this time of year can be a breeding ground for stress, awkward family politics, anger, and - sometimes - tears. To help you manoeuvre this tricky period, I have put together a little list of the Pros & Cons of the Festive Season to prepare you for any potential home-grown disaster...
I'm a big fan of animated shorts. No, not dancing pants, you smart arses - short films, often computer-animated or in pixilation. Pixar's been doing these for years, usually showing them just before cinema screenings of their full-length feature films, but in the last 5 years short films have come on in leaps and bounds. Helped in part with a nod of recognition by awards from big-name bodies such as the Oscars and Sundance, and aided by advancements in computer and graphic animation, animated shorts and short films are fast becoming the most modern and groundbreaking area of cinema. A great website for checking these out is http://www.shortoftheweek.com. Give it a browse, you'll be surprised at the stuff that's out there. A few of my favourites include French Roast(a charming little French animation about the kindness of strangers), Alma('Alma' means 'soul' in Spanish - watch it to understand), and The Division of Gravity(a slightly pretentious but nonetheless accurate depiction of the life and death of a relationship). My all-time favourite is actually used for a music video for what I think is an incredible track by the Drum'n'Bass artist S.P.Y. It uses clips from a short film by Spize Jonze called I'm Here so effectively and beautifully that you wouldn't know it wasn't an official music video. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's the best music video (unofficial or otherwise) I have ever seen. If you do nothing else with your day, watch it:
To me, this is love. Love, I believe, is different for everyone. It changes with age, with the person whom you are loving, and the way in which you express it. I always said I'd know when I was in love when I could honestly say that I would willingly give my life to another. So far, I've only been able to say that twice. When I love someone, I usually write a lot. Lyrics, journals, poems - it's my way of making something intangible, tangible; something I fear to be fleeting, permanent. Unfortunately, after relationships end, these are not things that you want to cart around with you to remind you of what once was, so I tend leave them at home. However, being back for Christmas, and watching By Your Side, inspired me to dig them out, for, (to quote Love Actually) "if you can't say it at Christmas, when can you say it...". The first thing I found was a book. It was given to me for Christmas in 2009 by my first serious boyfriend of over a year, and contains our whole relationship in its pages. He had painstakingly retrieved and glued in all our letters, emails, pictures and songs we had penned together, for one another, and I had added to it after our relationship ended. In it, I found lyrics that I had written when I was 17 - lyrics that symbolised what love meant to me at that age. Here is a snippet of what I wrote:
Light two candles in the dark,
One for me, one for my heart
Make a wish and blow them out -
No secret who I wish about.
Will you stay and never leave?
No need to doubt as I believe
That we can make it you and me
No arguments, I guarantee
(Chorus)
Here's a song I wrote for you,
Nothing special but it'll do
Remember me when you hear this play
A way of being with you every day.
Ok, so it's not Shakespeare. Or even Bob Dylan. But it's a testament of love as a teenager, in it's wholesome, naive and optimistic glory. I decided to keep digging, and eventually came across a more recent artefact of romantic ramblings from the last year: a journal I had kept over the summer. In amongst the inane day-to-day recording of my life, I had written what love meant to me at this time, for a different person, nearly 4 years later:
"It is a feeling that never goes away, it is a longing, an unwavering certainty that you would do anything for that other person - even so far as giving your own life for theirs...I can’t think of anyone who would love you so unconditionally, so unselfishly, and who would do so much for you - come what may. That embraces and loves your merits and your flaws equally...I believe, in love, you accept and adore the imperfections, the quirks - it’s what makes the other person interesting. It’s what makes them them..."
After thinking about it for a while, I started to wonder what other peoples' 'meaning' of love was, so, rather than listen to some Leonard Cohen or Coldplay, I decided to conduct a little survey. Here are the results:
1. Have you ever said 'I Love You' and didn't mean it?
57% of you said YES
2. Have you ever truly been in love?
86% of you said YES
As a follow-up question, I then asked: What does being in love mean to you? I've decided to keep this anonymous, but here are some of your answers...
"Being able to be completely yourself and not worry about scaring them away because you're both as strange as each other!"
"Knowing there is one person you can truly trust and rely on, knowing that you never have to make apologies or compromise who you are, knowing that feelings are honest and true and are going to last, knowing that when everything else around you falls apart you still have that one person who has this exclusive ability to make everything better, knowing that there is only one."
"Feeling as though there is nothing that can not be conquered! You are completely safe and yet as free as you want to be. No fear or apprehension, just pure belief."
"Being totally comfortable with someone whilst at the same time finding them sexy beyond belief, to enjoy them taking care of you and vice versa. I think although you should always have trust and belief in the relationship, it's good to have a knowledge that if they left you, your life, as you know it, would end..."
"Having complete trust in the other person and knowing they do in you. And wanting to share every success, failure & experience with them as you know they will love you whatever."
"So many things - it is laughing like you never have, smiling ear to ear, crying over the smallest argument and feeling every inch of your being die when you think you have lost them or they are hurt. It is such a complete, raw emotion that it is like a drug making you feel everything 100 times more."
"Being in love means being a team. Putting the other person in front of you and being willing to do anything for them. Whenever you are thinking about things you always think of them first. I knew exactly when I fell in love because I always thought about what he would have thought before me and taking into consideration other his feelings before mine. It's when you feel altruistic and forget about what you want or need just to compromise for the other persons emotions instead."
"It is very subjective, but for me love is definitely not a compromise... I agree love, or any relationship, is based on teamwork but in a team you don’t put someone before yourself, just as you would never put yourself before them. You stand side by side and support each other in every endeavour. Altruism isn’t reserved for love and love shouldn’t determine your character, I think it’s very important to be happy independent and to maintain that relationship with yourself regardless of relationship status... I guess the defining feature of love, in my perspective, is that it is healthy and mutual. Love is, to me, about a reciprocation of emotion because one of the loveliest things about being In love is knowing that someone loves you back, trusting in that and finding empowerment in it..."
"It's a level of unconditional trust with someone. The kind of report where you can be in a room with the same person and that in itself makes you incandescently happy, even if you're both doing your own thing. I have found love often to be inexplicable, but it's a level of comfort and happiness that can't be matched."
"Having the ability to overlook one another's flaws and respect each others differences, to feel comfortable in your own skin whilst wanting to be the best you can be with them, to hurt when they hurt and to feel indestructible whilst in each others presence."
Well. It would seem that "love, actually, is all around..."
So it's official. There's only one more week 'til Christmas. Seeing as 'tis the Season to be jolly', I thought I'd let you all in on a little musical secret that I've managed to keep to myself since Summer. It's called Discovr, and it's amazng (see what I did there). If you treat yourself to one app a year, make it this one. ( Click HERE to get it immediately.) It's the best thing you can buy for £1.49. Apart from maybe double-stuffed Oreos. They're pretty damn good. Essentially, it is like a music God in your pocket. You type in an artist that you like:
To show you just how good it is, I typed in a rather obscure artist - Alphabet Pony - who creates mainly Drum & Bass. Here's what it came up with:
None of whom I had previously heard of. Because this app is genius, you can then do this:
On whatever takes your fancy. I chose to have a browse of Seismix's music, and I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with Discovr for matching this up. Well played.
Click on other artists, and you will eventually end up with a cool looking web like this:
...which apart from looking really cool, is also pretty damn useful and intelligent in terms of matching you up with new music. Before you all go download and I'm out of a job, I thought I'd better give you your tune tape for this week. Some songs are curtesy of Discovr, some have been found through my own hard graft (yeah no worries, you're welcome). Big love this week to Chrome Sparks. I've got a couple of their songs, and they are all beautiful and offer something different. Definitely check them out on Spotify/YouTube/Soundcloud when you have a minute - you won't regret it, I promise. Another gem is Josh Kumra's cover of Jessie Ware's Wildest Moments. Brings a totally new feel to the song, and Josh's voice is just incredible. Mark my words - he's gonna be the new Ben Howard... For a bit of a Christmas skank, have a listen to We Have Arrived and get down and dirty with yo'self. Finally, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out Shout Out Louds had released a new song. I hadn't heard anything from them for about 5 years, and their new single doesn't disappoint. Happy listening and Merry Christmas.
So it's rolling round to that time of the year when everyone and their cat seems to be holding some kind of Christmas-themed shindig. This can be a hard time for fashion, as no-one wants to go dressed up as a Christmas pudding, but feels after all those mince pies they might be beginning to look like one. Well help is here - these pieces have been hand-picked to last you and your food baby right up until Boxing Day. So down that eggnog and max out your credit card - you won't regret it.
1. Bah Humbug Jumper by Zoe Karssen, Net-a-Porter, £95. Don't be a scrooge, click here.
Tomorrow I am holding a Christmas Party. I am very excited about it and want you all to know. Parties mean different things to different people. My idea of a good party is a group of friends coming over, getting crunk, and dancing around my coffee table. Yours might be more mellow, or involve male strippers - each to their own. But what is a party without music? This week I've compiled a playlist of songs guaranteed to get any party going, whatever your personal preferences. Top of this list is Gyptian's Hold Yu, which I defy any sane human being not to shake their moneymaker to. The next four are for those who like to sway to the beats of Drum&Bass - special mention to Alphabet Pony, who's a friend of a friend. Trust me, he's gonna be big. Bachelors of Science's Song for Lovers is also one of my favourite songs of all time, so no hating on that please. The next four tunes are for those of you who think you're pretty cool and alternative. Your parties may feature people with ridiculous haircuts and/or monocles - these tunes are a bit different, just like all of you! For those in the know, What So Not is actually Flume's alter-project, and is more dancey/high energy than his usual offerings. After these, we have three songs for those of you that like to turn your home into a nightclub for the evening. These songs demand much enthusiastic fist-pumping and booty-shaking. Credit must go to Goodwill & Hook n Sling for managing to successfully transform one of my favourite indie songs by Angus and Julia Stone into a great house track. Finally, for those of you that like to party sitting down with their friend Mary Jane, the final four should pair perfectly with your substance-induced mood. Whatever your party partiality, let loose and enjoy this Tune Tape...and Merry Christmas!
As there are only two weeks 'til Christmas, I'm sure many of you are feeling rather financially drained... Cue Mid-Season Sale Time! Top pick is the JBrand Jean - 65% off and only £80! I will definitely be investing in some of those bad boys. So reach once more for your credit cards ladies, because these deals are just too good to miss...
1. Pistachio T-Shirt, Reiss, £39 (was £79). Buy it here. 2. Black Fit & Flare Dress, French Connection, £55 (was £110). Buy it here. 3. Cream Satin Blouse, H&M, £12 (was £25). Buy it here. 4. 'Kiki' High-Rise Flared Jeans by J-Brand, The Outnet, £80 (was £230). Buy it here. 5. Gold-Plated Snake Rings by Kevia, The Outnet, £54 for 3 (was £120). Buy them here. 6. Paisley Skirt, Topshop, £12 (was £28). Buy it here. 7. Sky Collar Dress by Sister Jane, Topshop, £45 (was £68). Buy it here. 8. Cross Earrings by Pieces, ASOS, £4 (was £9). Buy them here. 9. Pearly Stones Necklace, H&M, £10 (was £15). Buy it here. 10. Leopard Print Court Shoe, Office, £35 (was £70). Buy them here. 11. Studded Ankle Boots, Topshop, £55 (was £75). Buy them here. Happy Shopping! Merry Christmas, Belle x
If you know me at all, you'll know my favourite movie is Breakfast at Tiffany's. In it, Holly Golightly explains how it feels to get 'The Mean Reds' to her dashing neighbour, Paul Varjak:
Holly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul: The mean reds, you mean like the blues?
Holly: No. The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?
I'd like to think my life draws many parallels with Holly's. I live alone in an apartment, rarely have anything more in my fridge than a lone bottle of champagne, sleep in late, and I occasionally cat-sit for my neighbours. Granted, I don't go out every night in fabulous gowns with older men, and I unfortunately don't have a handsome and creatively-troubled single neighbour in my building, but there are similarities there. Living alone has its perks. I can stay up as late as I want, get up as early as I want, make noise, make mess, have friends over, and not feel the least bit guilty. Yes, it is a selfish lifestyle, but I'd choose living solo over arguments about bills, noise, and who-stole-my-cheese any day. The only trouble with living alone is in the name: it sometimes gets a bit lonely. I'm an only child, so solitude comes almost as a second nature. I'm not good in groups, don't like crowds, and will opt for a night in watchingSex in the City over looking for sex in the city. I suppose you could call me a bit of a hermit. It means I don't rely on the company of others as much as other people, but it also means that when loneliness strikes, it's often crippling. In the movie, Holly's antidote for this feeling is to head to Tiffany's, because, "nothing very bad could happen to you there." My 'Tiffany's' are exhibitions, and today I went to a new one. The Cornerhouse Manchester is not somewhere I frequent very often. Not because it isn't lovely, but because I always feel a bit, well, out of place. It's one of those trendy gallery-come-cafe-come-cinema's, and is always full of intimidating hipsters in oversized vintage coats and questionable haircuts - I'm afraid I, in my brand-new Topshop boots and blowdried hair, don't quite cut it in terms of 'alternative chic'. Nevertheless, I'd been wanting to go to their current David Shrigley exhibition as soon as I had heard about it, and seeing as I'd had a bad case of the Mean Reds last night, I thought it would be a good antidote. As it was Friday lunchtime, most hipsters were either still in bed with an absinthe hangover, or dining at the latest pop-up burger restaurant, so I was free to wander around unjudged. Spread over three small floors, your introduction into the mind of David Shrigley is in a room with a foam bed (the "napping station"), a whiteboard (to write how you are feeling), a mirror, and a gong (just because). I could tell this was going to be the perfect exhibition.
Already feeling my spirits lifting, I continued to the second floor. Covered almost floor to ceiling with black-and-white drawings, it's like stumbling down the rabbit hole and into the mind of the Mad Hatter or Cheshire Cat - nothing makes sense, everything is allowed, and silliness is most definitely encouraged...
David's art has an amazing way of making you feel happy. It makes you laugh (which was fine, because there was no one there to stare at me), it makes you think, and it makes you feel less alone. Gradually, I realised it's ok to be lonely sometimes. And a bit weird. And this feeling made me happy. The third floor holds a giant statue of a man, with a row of chairs encircling him, and sheets of A3 covering the walls. It became apparent that you are encouraged to draw, or make some kind of artistic offering, that will be put on the walls. A little apprehensive, I looked around at what other people had drawn...
...and slowly but surely built up the courage to sit down and take a Shrigley-esque crack at it. Here is my finished product, in all it's glory:
The exhibition is entitled 'How are you feeling?'. On the whiteboard in the first floor, I had written lonely. By the time I had finished with my purple sharpie on the third, I was happy. For now, at least, the Mean Reds were gone. How are you feeling? Love, Belle x
