As a musical interlude, I offer this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjvaqVAFuLI I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Shoes. Ah shoes. What do I wear? MBTs (novelty comedy sports footwear that hasn't reduced my cellulite - only reincarnation will deal with that) Campri Snow Boots from Sports Direct for dog walking, some Geox shoes (more novelty footwear - this time with breathing soles! Perfect for the menopausal woman) And that's it, really - anything with a heel would give me altitude sickness, and since I never wear skirts anyway, what would be the point?
Yet Clarks calls to me with its Siren emails, enticing me towards the online store - coo coo (forget that - isn't that the dove from above??) and recently I bought these -
http://www.clarks.co.uk/find/keyword-is-capricorn/product-is-20346043
Alright, I know, for you shoes experts it's not much, but it's a start. Haven't worn them yet - may try them at my next book keeping class next week for a trial run.
I've also taken a fancy to these http://www.clarks.co.uk/find/keyword-is-bombay/product-is-20306743
I actually had a look at them around Christmastime when out with my husband. At the sight of me picking them up, he started hyperventilating and telling me that it wasn't my sort of thing. Cue woman beating man on head with heel of shoe........ I may need them to go with this - http://www.vivienofholloway.com/en/category/50s%20Halterneck%20Plain%20Dress/1950s-halterneck-plain-dress/78/
or even this http://www.vivienofholloway.com/en/category/Sarong%20Prints/sarong-print/125/
I know, I can dream. After all, I'm more likely to be sitting in the cafe on Tooting Bec Common instead of a bar in Guadalajara. Distinct lack of powerful horses on the Common despite the bridle path.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Angel
Hello everyone - long time no blogs! don't know why, really - goodness knows I've always got a lot to say for myself! I've started thinking about angels (cue communal groan from everyone). Well, anyway, I have, especially about this one:
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=21761&tabview=image
I tried to copy the picture, but my grasp on technology being what it is, you'll have to click on it yourselves to see it in its full glory!
It's a huge statue in pink alabaster by Jacob Epstein called Jacob and the Angel. it used to be in Tate Britain, but now it's been moved to Tate Liverpool, so I will have to travel further to see this marvellous angel. I'm not bothered about Jacob - he was a dishonourable character as far as I'm concerned. But the angel - oh! A magnificent creature. He's holding Jacob up after wrestling with him all night and finally dislocating Jacob's hip. It really is my favourite piece of sculpture, hidden away for years at the top of a staircase in Tate Britain. He was really my very own guilty pleasure. Funnily enough I think I met him recently - not with the wings, and the flowing locks and the pink alabaster, but definitely the face. I didn't realise at first, but then it dawned on me, the resemblance, after a visit this weekend to the British Modern Sculpture exhibition at the RA. I remembered the angel, and then it struck me who this particular person reminded me of. I'm sure only I can see it. And I certainly won't be telling them about it.
One thing leads to another and I've recently rediscovered this, by the blessed Madonna -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nn6pp_0MB0
Hmm
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=21761&tabview=image
I tried to copy the picture, but my grasp on technology being what it is, you'll have to click on it yourselves to see it in its full glory!
It's a huge statue in pink alabaster by Jacob Epstein called Jacob and the Angel. it used to be in Tate Britain, but now it's been moved to Tate Liverpool, so I will have to travel further to see this marvellous angel. I'm not bothered about Jacob - he was a dishonourable character as far as I'm concerned. But the angel - oh! A magnificent creature. He's holding Jacob up after wrestling with him all night and finally dislocating Jacob's hip. It really is my favourite piece of sculpture, hidden away for years at the top of a staircase in Tate Britain. He was really my very own guilty pleasure. Funnily enough I think I met him recently - not with the wings, and the flowing locks and the pink alabaster, but definitely the face. I didn't realise at first, but then it dawned on me, the resemblance, after a visit this weekend to the British Modern Sculpture exhibition at the RA. I remembered the angel, and then it struck me who this particular person reminded me of. I'm sure only I can see it. And I certainly won't be telling them about it.
One thing leads to another and I've recently rediscovered this, by the blessed Madonna -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nn6pp_0MB0
Hmm
Thursday, 1 July 2010
All The Rage - The Style Issue
Hello everyone!
Leila has done it again - she has put together a fantastic edition of All The Rage with the theme of Style. It's got some great stuff. And my own article towards the end about summer dressing in London. Ahem.
Do give it a read. www.alltherage.org.uk/alltherage-2010-07.pdf
It's well worth it!
Leila has done it again - she has put together a fantastic edition of All The Rage with the theme of Style. It's got some great stuff. And my own article towards the end about summer dressing in London. Ahem.
Do give it a read. www.alltherage.org.uk/alltherage-2010-07.pdf
It's well worth it!
Monday, 31 May 2010
Claudio and me
Claudio Baglioni?
Oh yes, he and I go back a long way, probably back to about 1974 when I started listening to Italian pop music on my interminable hols (those were the days!). There was no globalisation of music at that time - I certainly never heard the likes of Sweet, the Osmonds, Mudd, or Marc Bolam on Italian radio back then. No, it was all hairy blokes in unfeasibly tight jeans yodelling some very explicit lyrics about having their way with some underage girl on a beach. We only got that sort of thing in recent years with James Blunt.
Yet Claudio rose above them all. Whilst in the UK we were voting Stairway to Heaven as our record of all time, the Italians chose Questo Piccolo Grande Amore
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yjl-OZ8p7E This song has become his pension - just as the members of Slade get their cheques every January for that fab Christmas song of theirs.....
QPGA has stood the test of time, with that fabulous line "Adesso che, saprei cosa dire, adesso che, saprei cosa fare, adesso che..."
Claudio sang the songs that really were the sound track to my youth, as I mooched about in my Laura Ashley dresses, more vague than vogue, more gammon than gamine.
Sabato Pomeriggio, E tu, Tu come stai, Quante Volte, Amore Bello, Mille Giorni di te e me, Strada facendo, Poster, and so forth. He's been at it for more than 40 years - there's a lot of stuff out there.
Now I tell my own daughters that if anyone comes near them telling them anything from those songs they should run a mile. It's what I would call stalker music! Not that anyone came near me with lines like "ieri ho ritrovato le tue iniziali nel mio cuore" or "quante volte ti ho pensato sulla sedia di cucina"
And yet I fell for all of them again last Saturday night at the Royal Albert Hall, along with thousands of menopausal people of Italian extrapolation, when I went to hear him sing in London for the very first time. I couldn't miss this opportunity.
He was wonderful. He really is the Italian Barry Manilow, Bruce Springsteen and Burt Bacharach rolled into one.
I was determined, though, not to fall for those fabulous songs again. I can tell you I failed miserably.
He had everyone purring with delight as they left to mooch home on a drizzly night.
look him up. You know you want to.....
Oh yes, he and I go back a long way, probably back to about 1974 when I started listening to Italian pop music on my interminable hols (those were the days!). There was no globalisation of music at that time - I certainly never heard the likes of Sweet, the Osmonds, Mudd, or Marc Bolam on Italian radio back then. No, it was all hairy blokes in unfeasibly tight jeans yodelling some very explicit lyrics about having their way with some underage girl on a beach. We only got that sort of thing in recent years with James Blunt.
Yet Claudio rose above them all. Whilst in the UK we were voting Stairway to Heaven as our record of all time, the Italians chose Questo Piccolo Grande Amore
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yjl-OZ8p7E This song has become his pension - just as the members of Slade get their cheques every January for that fab Christmas song of theirs.....
QPGA has stood the test of time, with that fabulous line "Adesso che, saprei cosa dire, adesso che, saprei cosa fare, adesso che..."
Claudio sang the songs that really were the sound track to my youth, as I mooched about in my Laura Ashley dresses, more vague than vogue, more gammon than gamine.
Sabato Pomeriggio, E tu, Tu come stai, Quante Volte, Amore Bello, Mille Giorni di te e me, Strada facendo, Poster, and so forth. He's been at it for more than 40 years - there's a lot of stuff out there.
Now I tell my own daughters that if anyone comes near them telling them anything from those songs they should run a mile. It's what I would call stalker music! Not that anyone came near me with lines like "ieri ho ritrovato le tue iniziali nel mio cuore" or "quante volte ti ho pensato sulla sedia di cucina"
And yet I fell for all of them again last Saturday night at the Royal Albert Hall, along with thousands of menopausal people of Italian extrapolation, when I went to hear him sing in London for the very first time. I couldn't miss this opportunity.
He was wonderful. He really is the Italian Barry Manilow, Bruce Springsteen and Burt Bacharach rolled into one.
I was determined, though, not to fall for those fabulous songs again. I can tell you I failed miserably.
He had everyone purring with delight as they left to mooch home on a drizzly night.
look him up. You know you want to.....
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Other people's children
Ooh I'm feeling bad now. But bitter past experience just let the words fall out of my mouth. I will have to grovel later when I see her. Explain the circumstances. It's just what you want to hear when you're having a hard day at work, some smug fester at home mum mentioning that your child kept her waiting for 5 whole minutes when there was at least half an hour to get to school. I just wanted to nip it in the bud, you see. Not that ad hoc lifts to school constitute a major delivery contract, on the lines of royal mail and amazon, no, just a child being picked up for the five minutes drive to school.
I've been lucky enough not to have to pick up too many children in my time. There have of course been the inevitable times when I would drive around London in my pyjamas in the middle of the night, rescuing teenage girls and delivering each one to a different address, and those days are certainly not over. Those I don't mind. It's only every so often. What gets me is the regular week after week grind of having to wait for a child who clearly doesn't want to go where we're going and explain at the other end why we're late. A situation I put up with for about two years.
"Please tell whoever you've got looking after them that I need them ready on the doorstep when I turn up" - there are only a number of times you can say that to a harassed parent who's already feeling indebted to you for taking their children to whatever activity, picking them up afterwards, giving them supper ("we're vegetarian, so no meat please. Oh, and organic") and waiting for parent to collect, whilst trying to keep said children from destroying your house and really annoying your own children. "Mum, we hate them. And they smell."
Mercifully, everything comes to and end. Including after school activities. Yet this arrangement left me deeply scarred. Thank goodness I now drive a very small car. And the secondary schools are just nearby.
I've been lucky enough not to have to pick up too many children in my time. There have of course been the inevitable times when I would drive around London in my pyjamas in the middle of the night, rescuing teenage girls and delivering each one to a different address, and those days are certainly not over. Those I don't mind. It's only every so often. What gets me is the regular week after week grind of having to wait for a child who clearly doesn't want to go where we're going and explain at the other end why we're late. A situation I put up with for about two years.
"Please tell whoever you've got looking after them that I need them ready on the doorstep when I turn up" - there are only a number of times you can say that to a harassed parent who's already feeling indebted to you for taking their children to whatever activity, picking them up afterwards, giving them supper ("we're vegetarian, so no meat please. Oh, and organic") and waiting for parent to collect, whilst trying to keep said children from destroying your house and really annoying your own children. "Mum, we hate them. And they smell."
Mercifully, everything comes to and end. Including after school activities. Yet this arrangement left me deeply scarred. Thank goodness I now drive a very small car. And the secondary schools are just nearby.
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
School Scrum
This time it was going to be easier. After all, this was my third round of secondary school applications. I'm defintely a been seen and done it type on this score.
If boring everyone witless with my knowledge of London secondary school transfer were an olympic sport, I would have more gold medals than Steve Redgrave, I really would. The whole business has to be the most stressful thing that parents have to go through - at least childbirth doesn't last that long!
Of course, we bring the stress on ourselves - whether it's the state or private system, we're all running round like headless chickens on those open days, hyperventilating at the thought of whether or not we're in the catchment area, how many times a school is oversubscribed, mixed or single sex, and so forth.
Then there's another factor a parent has to take into account - the opinion of the child! Since when did they have the right to choose anything? Well, in our case, it's since birth. And they all have different opinions, desperate to get away from the shadow of an older sibling, to do their own thing.
well the forms are in. All we have to do is wait for March 1st and pray that siblings still have priority over everyone else....
If boring everyone witless with my knowledge of London secondary school transfer were an olympic sport, I would have more gold medals than Steve Redgrave, I really would. The whole business has to be the most stressful thing that parents have to go through - at least childbirth doesn't last that long!
Of course, we bring the stress on ourselves - whether it's the state or private system, we're all running round like headless chickens on those open days, hyperventilating at the thought of whether or not we're in the catchment area, how many times a school is oversubscribed, mixed or single sex, and so forth.
Then there's another factor a parent has to take into account - the opinion of the child! Since when did they have the right to choose anything? Well, in our case, it's since birth. And they all have different opinions, desperate to get away from the shadow of an older sibling, to do their own thing.
well the forms are in. All we have to do is wait for March 1st and pray that siblings still have priority over everyone else....
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Watching paint dry at the RA
When I go on outings with my friend G, we normally just eat and shop and talk. Sometimes we venture into the Royal Academy to view the latest exhibitions only because I have a Friend's Card and we rather get tired of the shopping. The other week we ventured into the Anish Kapoor Exhibition.
I can't paste the link here - I suggest you all google Royal Academy and Anish Kapoor and see what comes up.
Although technically brilliant, frankly it really was like watching paint dry. I haven't laughed so much since the Gilbert and George retrospective at Tate Modern. I also had the urge to touch everything. Was that the point of it? the squidgy red wax left in the corners by the huge lipstick thing trundling up and down the galleries on rails, the anticipation of the cannon being fired (we gave up on that and went to look at the mirrors) the concrete pooh sculptures, the huge rusty cave thing that had me hooting into it for an echo. My friend G was only pleased we hadn't had to pay to get in. We thought we would bring our husbands along for the comedy value, just to see their reations. G's husband nearly had a seizure at the Rothko at the beginning of the year. She's still laughing at the memory.
Later, in the members room, we didn't find anywhere to sit, but I spotted Francesa Annis chatting to two old blokes at a table. Gorgeous woman and fab actress to boot.
At least there's Van Gogh to look forward to in the spring.
I can't paste the link here - I suggest you all google Royal Academy and Anish Kapoor and see what comes up.
Although technically brilliant, frankly it really was like watching paint dry. I haven't laughed so much since the Gilbert and George retrospective at Tate Modern. I also had the urge to touch everything. Was that the point of it? the squidgy red wax left in the corners by the huge lipstick thing trundling up and down the galleries on rails, the anticipation of the cannon being fired (we gave up on that and went to look at the mirrors) the concrete pooh sculptures, the huge rusty cave thing that had me hooting into it for an echo. My friend G was only pleased we hadn't had to pay to get in. We thought we would bring our husbands along for the comedy value, just to see their reations. G's husband nearly had a seizure at the Rothko at the beginning of the year. She's still laughing at the memory.
Later, in the members room, we didn't find anywhere to sit, but I spotted Francesa Annis chatting to two old blokes at a table. Gorgeous woman and fab actress to boot.
At least there's Van Gogh to look forward to in the spring.
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