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Monday, 6 August 2012
Slow Boat Reaches London! .(scribbled at 20:20 )
After a staggering trek over 100 miles, Britain's coolest narrowboat (ahem, slightly biased) finally reached London after 2 weeks of not exceeding the 4mph canal speed limit.
Celebrations were due to be underway that Saturday afternoon, so I went over to the New London Architecture Centre on Tottenham Court Road that morning. Which was absolutely beautiful, I spent about half an hour just admiring Pipers Central London model (and searching in vain to see whether Finsbury Park had made it onto the 1: 1500 scale centrepiece. Alas, it only reached King's Cross...darn)
It wasn't just this display that was utterly brilliant though, the centre was filled with a wide selection of scale models of London's finest buildings, skyscapers and outdoor spaces. And if that wasn't fascinating enough ( I'm an architectural model obsessive so I won't waffle on too much about those...) the basement was filled with scale models of home that focused on the ideal energy efficient home. Okay, as I'm typing that it doesn't sound too thrilling but you just have to see it! It's so refreshing to see an organisation that really understands our needs for the future, and does its utter best to illustrate that through this media of beautiful models and displays (the mini solar panels were rather adorable too!)
Anywho, moving very swiftly back to tillers adorned with kingfisher decorations...
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Too cute to eat, surely?
A selection of sweet stuff prepared by the Chisenhale Crew |
Slow Boat is now in London until Saturday, so if any of you are around this area you should bloody go see it! It's not everyday that you see a floating radio station-come-art space. It's moored just behind Chisenhale Gallery, who have programmed an intense series of events between now and its departure this weekend. There's a film screening at the gallery on Thursday evening which I'll undoubtedly be heading off to see straight after work. Oh, and there's a talk about radio stations with the brilliant boat master (and canal extraordinaire!) Graham Fisher, who famously appeared on Julia Bradbury's Canal Walks last Summer. I also happen to know from experience that Graham is brilliant to talk to about the waterways over a nice brew...
After seeing the boat, I went along to Victoria Park with Ikon Gallery's youth programme and Propeller (Chisenhale's Youth Programme) to catch a bit of the Olympic screening on their huge screen... and engage in a but of public sculpture discussions, obviously...
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| Entrance at Victoria Park |
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| What I Wore Today: A breton top, because I actually have a Helmsmans Certificate. |
Anyway, things in Victoria Park were pretty cool. I've got such an urge to try out the (£15!) zipwire there, although I imagine I'll have a Boris Johnson moment and inevitably get stuck halfway...
The ska band by the main entrance were pretty awesome too, although this photograph I took doesn't quite show the capacity, the audience were fairly huge.
http://ikonslowboat.com/2012/
http://www.chisenhale.org.uk/
http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk/Labels: AAD, ART DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE, Breton Tops, Chisenhale Gallery, Hertford Union Canal, Ikon Youth Programme, London 2012, NLA, Propeller, Slow Boat, Vermeer's Sponge, Victoria Park
Friday, 3 August 2012
46 (less) shades of grey. .(scribbled at 22:21 )
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T-Shirt: Zara
Glasses: Topshop circa 2008 |
If any of you read last Wednesday's post on scrubbing up my French, well... it's not going horrifically. Like, my copy of
Coco Before Chanel arrived from Amazon and everything! I've even started incorporating random French lexis into my work emails, which is undoubtedly pissing everyone off in the office. Oops.
From my brief stint of au pairing in Neuilly Sur Seine, I remember that three things grew embedded in my mindset as quintessentially Parisian.
1. Espresso and copious amounts of filter coffee before breakfast.
2. Snacking on bread and jam after getting home ('Goûter, I believe my French children referred to it as)
3 Everyone wearing so much monochrome that they could have been mistaken as an extra in a film conceived by the Lumière brothers.
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| Audrey Tautou: the bilingual beauty i'll never be |
Of course, the stark reality of this is that if you drink a couple of espressos in quick succession of each other, you'll probably vomit. Also, regardless of how frequently I choose to opt for bread and jam as a post work snack, it is not making me any thinner and any more French. It just means that the likelihood of me squeezing my ass into a pair of Comptoir des Cotonniers chinos is becoming increasingly impossible.
But the clothing palette of grey? That I can commit to...
Now before you hit the 'X' icon in the corner of your browser window in a flurry of horror, I must reiterate here that I am not a sartorial blogger, nor will I pretend to be. But I bought four grey tops from Zara in the last week alone so I'm experiencing a little high of post-consumerism madness.
Well, it was partially justified madness anyway. You know when you've worn a favourite piece from your wardrobe so much that it reaches the point where it is physically falling to pieces, and no amount of Cinderella's seamstress mice can salvage it?
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| Walt Disney: building false hopes for girls since 1901 |
Well, for the past 4 years I've been donning this grey tee that I picked up from the Zara on the Champs-Élysées, and it was only last week when standing outside our archives at work I caught sight of my reflection. This t-shirt had become transparent through wear (insert swear word here where I realised that everyone I'd encountered that day... had seen too much) Now I'm totally up for sheer fabrics forming part of my wardrobe, just not when that fabric was cotton once upon a time. So a few hours later, I found myself on Bond Street, destined to replace just one grey t-shirt. Not long after, I was back at Oxford Circus with a bulging bag of 3 grey t-shirts and a (grey, obvs.) jersey maxi dress. B*llocks... pay day is a ridiculous amount of time away. Oh, and I just remembered that there was a new Breton top in that bag (again, trying-and-failing to be European haha)
Anyway, after that post on Donald Judd and Minimalism being fantastic etc, I think it's time I adopted clean cut lines into my wardrobe for a while. I might even try and pretend I can afford to buy something achingly chic from Cos or something like that.
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| I found this image on Copious.com |
I also shouldn't be admitting this on my blog, but I even extended this th
rough to my maquillage* this week. I abandoned my box of Rimmel go-to pieces in favour of Chanel foundation and Lancôme Doll Eyes mascara. Which is making me think a bit about marketing in the cosmetics industry. I bought a L'Oréal nail varniss earlier, in shade 'Café St. Germain', which I now realise is compelete and utter merde. My nails do not represent anything Parisian right now: the shade is something not too dissimilar from mushroom soup.
Well, at least I mastered the Tarte Tatin.
V
*alas, not scent: my bottle of
No. 5 ran out a year ago. I haven't got the nerve to ask my mother to buy me another.
Labels: Au Pair in Neuilly Sur Seine, Becoming European, Breton Tops, Cest chic ouaih, Coco Before Chanel, Espresso, French Refresher, Les Enfants, Sartorial
