Not Going To See The Queen

On last night's local news they said the Queen would be visiting Nottingham this morning.... I asked the 13 year-old if he wanted me to spring him out of school for the day so we could go and watch her *doing some waving* on the town hall balcony, and, like, see her in the flesh. He didn't. It felt odd to imagine myself going, sans children, so I didn't either.

And, on the subject of the recent Jubilee, ignoring the Gary Barlow-Paul McCartney fiasco, this is what we did. Yes, we had some cakes! And I *might have watched the odd bit of tv coverage too*.....

Note, they are NOT cup-cakes!

And I am going to frame this fabulous retro, jubilee-edition cereal packaging.

Because I LOVES  the typography and colours.

And the boys both think it's an excellent idea too.... win-win :)

Meringues In The Marquee

This week, tv's gone a bit Masterchef-In-A-Marquee.

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2012-01-10/the-great-british-bake-off-does-sport-relief


With celebs doing some baking. For charity. Proper made-from-scratch-meringue catastrophes, some of them decorated with greenery, which just looks wrong. Tonight's show was on in the background, and my main impression was that the judges Weren't Much Fun. On account of being A Bit Picky. And no one burnt the marquee down. Still, there's always tomorrow.

However I shall be paying Proper Attention on Thursday, as one of the contestants is Pearl Lowe. Lovely wife of Lovely Danny Goffey, as well as designer, writer, designer, writer, welly-wearer, mother.... formerly of Primrose Hill, and the tabloids. But I'm always going to love Lodger, the late 90's band where her vocals combined with those of Neil Carlill of Delicatessen were compared with Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood, no less. And they made some crazy videos...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodger_(British_band)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Abnv0OZdlhw&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFfVlF8Y8eE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GnLB0AiAYs&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL







 He was such cute 90's eye candy...


As for the Bake Off - me separating egg whites and beating meringues? Sod that, I'm a shop-bought girl.

Turner And Marmite, All On The Telly

Oh the cultural highs I encounter these days... have just seen Michael McIntyre re-created out of toast and marmite. By a 21 year old art student. Roll on the next Turner Prize nominations...

Personally, I thought it was more like Peter Mandelson, but who am I to deny MM his moment in marmite?

And that led us nicely into hitting the toaster in the ad break, but our toast and marmite was for satisfying our suggested-to tastebuds and not for the cultural puzzlement of any mass Saturday night audience. Actually on the food front today I have been unusually inspired, and made savoury pancakes with chunky houmous and olives. Washed down afterwards with walnut cake. From a shop, not my own fair hands. But there was a certain harmony in the textures of said pancake-and-cake combination.

Going back to Turner, I watched the delectable Andrew Graham-Dixon, he of the slightly-Bryan-Ferry-coiffure-with-a-twist-of-Serge-Gainsbourg, doing National Trusty things last night. Very rock'n'roll, me. Watching some posh bloke (phwoarr) hovering old carpets. And on a Friday night 'n' all - how did it get to this? Anyways, the Turner bit of the show was the fact that the dusty carpet was at Petworth House in Sussex, where the racy aristocrats of the day collected Turner's paintings of landscapes. When to do so, AGD informed us, was considered avant-garde at the time, when all the other posh families were commissioning portraits of their chubby, rosy-cheeked selves.

And seeing as I'm wittering on about tv again, I am a little intrigued about the upcoming thing about celebs having a homeless person come to stay. Noble, and both parties will surely learn something about each other, and the celebs will momentarily become humbler people. But why is it only Justin out of Colin-and-Justin hosting the homeless person? Do C & J no longer feature as the tweedle-dum-tweedle-dee kind of duo on which they have built their career - house renovating, shrieking, cushion-arranging, tantrum-throwing... oh, and dancing? Is this Justin being Grown-Up and Serious? Does Colin also get to separately sneak in a homeless person later in the series? I think they've gone for the wrong angle with this programme - much more mileage if it was People Famous Mostly Just For Tarting Up Houses On The Telly doing the social-conscience bit. Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, are you listening?

Prawn In My Side

Well, I've been out twice this weekend. Both times daytime, so no soirees of pickled octopus or owt like that. And, to be frank, the exertion has left me just wanting to lie down and eat cakes in the 7 or so hours left before it will become officially respectable timewise to do more lying down. The cakes may not be a terribly good idea, as they will probably lead to more dreams of misbehaving hamsters and wild and frantic attempts not to be late for work.

Yesterday's experience of exposure to the elements was urban and shiny, hanging out in bijou shoe shops and glorified treasure troves. And man it was blustery gustery, havoc-playing and affirming the need to retouch my roots. We did some art too - although that was a late dash through the gallery - but a dash was enough to see the paltry 6 pieces that comprised the exhibition.

Today was haircut for the 11 year old and running into an acquaintance, plus buying some instant lunch in the form of prawn salads and sandwiches. I know, lazy, lazy. All part of my new rule about only cooking once a day at weekends. The acquaintance tried to gloat about the wonderful pudding her son had made, so I threw back a glowing review of an equally successful cake my 2 had whipped up. I do not like parental one-up-womanship, so I think we left it at 1:1.

Someone asked yesterday why other people blog. The nearest answer I could agree with was its what you do when your facebook statuses start getting over-wieldy. Mine is just letting out the stuff that goes through my brain at random points*. So far it is acting as an appalling record of how little I really do, seeing as most of my posts are about a)avoiding other activities and b)reporting how much activity I have managed to avoid.

This is not good, or life-affirming, or productive. A random point may well be the duration of Take Me Out, aka an over-egged version of Blind Date. Cilla's shoulderpads have been updated into Paddy McGuinness' sharply-angled lapels which emphasise the spock-like nature of his ears. And each week, as all but 5 lights get turned off, we nearly get rid of the lovely, short, but very desperate, welsh girl. But not quite.

Moving In Day!

Hola

My blog is now going to reside with you lovely blogspot peeps, after becoming overly-harangued elsewhere by young blades with music careers to promote...

This is what you've missed so far: http://www.myspace.com/trashsparkle/blog

I shall continue to gabble inanely, nocturnally, daytimely, indeed whenever, of adventures in patisserieland, cosmetics, artiness, cerebral soundtracks and bad hairdays (yes, that means YOU Claudia Winkleman!)

Trashsparkle xx