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.

I Think I'm Becoming A Philater...Er... Stamp Collector!

Image from http://www.bfdc.co.uk


This wasn't going to be my First Post (boom boom!) of The Year, but then The Divine Helga reminded me of my growing Crush on Old Royalty in her post about coming over all Queen Victoria-esque: http://helgavontrollop.blogspot.com/2012/01/feels-like-touch-of-victoria.html




What with the Diamond Jubilee coming up this year there are going to be some yummy stamps being issued by the Royal Mail. Such as this kind of thing.







Image from https://www.myroyalmail.com

There were also these 2007 60th Wedding Anniversary stamps -

a bit of Couture Excellence in black and white:

Image from http://www.bfdc.co.uk

Just before Christmas I picked up a book on more of the Old Lovelies. Its full of splendid pictures of the Victorian and Edwardian ancestors. What with being too busy eating mince pies I haven't scanned it yet, but I'm planning a Bit Of A Feature on the landing wall using images from the book and some of these stamps.


It will all be joining this Jamie Reid poster:





And possibly this photo. I once kidded an impressionable young man these were my grandparents:


(Image by Patrick Lichfield)


.... which reminds me; must decide where we're going this summer!


Image from http://habituallychic.blogspot.com/2011/02/governor-of-bahamas.html.

HabituallyChic's blog has tons of fabulous Duke and Duchess of Windsor photographs. I'm going grab a coffee and sit and sigh over them all now....

Happy New Year!

Feeling ridiculously good - happy, lucky, contented good, not hyper, stimulant-fuelled good - this New Year's Eve. No particular reason - it's just feeling more important this year than any other so far to feel lucky that my life's in a good place, with a prickling feeling about those whose life isn't.

We're chez nous tonight, as usual, having a blast of popcorn, great music, probably some Jools Holland, some sparklers, and definitely the London fireworks on tv at midnight. And a splendidly undisturbed lie-in in the morning. 6 Music's been on all afternoon - bah humbug to whichever government, tory or labour, had the daft idea to try to axe it.

To everyone who has put up with my random thoughts this year, inspired me, made me laugh, made me cry - a massive thank you, and I hope next year will be everything it should be, and more.*

Much love xx



* of course, we will ignore the 3 weeks or whatever length of boredom that shall be the olympics ;)

Resolutions 2012

1. Must. Not. Have. Any. More. Pretzels. In. The. House. Ever...
2. Must stop buying vintage Quality Street tins. Its getting silly now...
3. Ditto posters. Even ones that are not massive. I do not have enough walls.
4. Must remember that cleaning CAN be relaxing, de-stressing and CAN involve the whole family.
5. Maybe I should start delegating the cooking too, for the same reasons.
6. Will read more books again, even though magazines are easy visual eye candy.*
7. Will sort my books out so they are grouped properly, instead of bunging new ones into random available spaces.

*Have started John Steinbeck and Robert Capa's 1947 "Russian Journal". Saw some fuss in the press about schools allegedly copping out by setting Steinbeck's mere 6-chapter "Of Mice And Men" to year 10 kids. Michael Gove, Minister for Something To Do With Making Children Cleverer, thinks children should read 50 books a year. That's one a week. Maybe he means short-ish books. I'm not tying either of my kids to chairs to make them "achieve" a novel a week...

Something Silly...

One of those moments where

It's No Longer Christmas

but not yet New Year's Eve?

A bit bored?

You should be doing Other Things*?

Then follow these quick and easy steps:

1) Go on this: http://www.howjsay.com/
2) Ask it how to say "vajazzle"**

And then:
3) Leave me a comment with what YOU ended up asking it to say




* Like your tax return, decluttering your email inbox...


**It sounds quite different from how Amy Childs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vTzuZk1OHA says it ;)