Salsa Spaghetti Arms

I know spending Friday night overdosing on rolos never used to be my idea of fun, but hey. I've got old german footage of Echo and The Bunnymen on, and that storm that only Scotland were supposed to get is raging on outside, part 2. Dreams tonight may be random, as they will be sugar-fuelled and broken by the crashing of loose debris on the roof. Last night, unaided by sugar, alcohol or indeed any stimulants at all, I conjured up a wilful hamster, stage-diving into a water dish then rolling in sawdust, plus my mum getting married again, with my cousin particularly enthusiatic in a rainbow-hued flamenco dress.

No idea where either of those came from, given that I'd watched something about Abraham Lincoln earlier. Mind you I couldn't seem to get that into it. Electric 6's fault.

Before that I checked out what was irritating Mary Portas this week: phone shops. Some grey wigs, and lots of striding about like a praying mantis on heels. We learnt that one man with waxed eyebrows plus his body-popping brother equals a lamborghini.

Am praying deeply that parents' evening is not imminent, as the 11 year old has told his design teacher that mum met Lee McQueen where she used to work. Like the leopardskin coat, that might be a detail they aren't ready for round these parts.

Bag of Pixies

Feel very lucky today - have had double-day-off time this week, so all very chilled and trying to be focussed. On sorting my life out a bit more. Bigger. Better. Faster. Go....

Of course, I had to have a few Pixies tracks to start today off, but am playing Frank Black to get more of his vocals, while figuring out a faster way to sell my vintage stuff. I am hopelessly undisciplined at listing stuff, the photos-in-a-good-light and the description malarkey, but its easy-peasy really. But imagine how brilliant it would be to have an app like in the tesco advert, but sort of in reverse. You scan your phone over a mid-century coffeepot, and 3 seconds later, its on eBay, beautifully photographed, accurately described.... Oh, please someone, invent it now.

Have been in to town for coffee and cake and was intending to try out some perfumes, but waylaid by the sale rail of acrylic goodies elsewhere I felt too bag ladyish and lost my nerve. Not sure what scent a bag lady should wear, but the one squirt of O' de Lancome I sneaked before backing out of Boots is not quite it.

Doolittle. Again

Now that we are in February we'll have a bit of colour here. These are the tulips from last week.  

This week's flowers are as kitsch-as-hell. Coasters, in perfect nick. They smell just like they've been at the back of someone's sideboard for 50 years....

I think the parenting skills inspection went well. If that's how you can describe a psychologist clutching at straws. I'd hidden all the Tizer leftover from Christmas, and the empty pot noodle cartons anyway. They basically think he'll go back into a school somewhere, but not the current one, in his own sweet time. So, no problem there then. Apparently.

Last night's online grocery shop was a fail, as I was drawn instead to checking out a blog of old film and tv stills. This meant The Supermarket. Again. So, I put the blinkers on, got myself banned from the jewellery aisle, and managed a well-disciplined haul. Although the super-sized, stubby 720g jar of Branston was chosen for vase-potential so a swift decanting will need to be actioned.

Swift and action are words that are going to have to enter my vocabulary, replacing sofa-time and laissez-faire. Slapdash and slack are not getting me anywhere fast. In fact, I would like my life to be wireless, streamlined, less messy. But in the meantime I can't stop playing the Pixies....

...and uploading the odd photo of glorious buildings.



Peel Acres, And Will Leanne Ever Find All Those Bottles Behind The Cushions?

Tonight the 11 year old wanted to put on some Jeff Buckley. Therein lay the potential to mine the vein of  Drowned Musicians, seeing as my next immediate thought was "and Brian Jones". I excluded rock-gods-found-in-the-bath, and decided against drawing up a playlist on the basis that Corrie was about to start.

The Heathcliffesque Secret-Not-Lemonade-Drinker Peter Barlow is never quick enough. There are now so many glasses and bottles stuffed hastily behind the cushions; luckily for him nobody ever seems to do a bit of cushion-plumping.

I don't think my handle on current affairs is too hot sometimes. My first reaction to the "Fatwa on May" headline was that James, or possibly Brian, must have done something a little inappropriate. But I suppose that's not too bad, seeing as some of the students I work with are qualifying to arrange holidays for people, yet can't even tell you where the Caribbean is. Or Glasgow. There are strong reactions to the abolition of the educational maintenance allowance, one of which was a 10-strong torrent of commas in one of Lucy Mangan's sentences this weekend. Back in the day, I survived teenage life on the dual-joys of John Peel and a full grant at a uni desperate enough to take my mediocre A'level results. Times are tough for school-leavers these days - needing a sugar daddy in order to pay for a degree are somehow mutually incompatible.

Sardines?

Monday. My head's all over the place, and my legs don't feel connected to the rest of me anymore. A day of too many people, too many different things. Tomorrow my parenting skills (ie lying on the sofa avoiding domestic mundanities, failing to plan menus, random supermarket raids producing more to wear than to eat, and have we mentioned the magazines?) are being put under scrutiny vis a vis why Boy 1 is no longer on the radar of school. Should be interesting....
Meanwhile, I am going to have to face the cold and joyless world that is online grocery ordering. That's usually 45 minutes of looking at miniscule photographic representations of meaningless stuff, and accidentally buying the vegetables by the packet and not individually. Yeah, I really wanted 12 packets of tomatoes that time. In the meantime I have convinced myself that we do actually have enough to concoct dinner tonight... as long as its sardine risotto.

And today's soundtrack is that of the fishtank gurgling, and a pair of 11 year olds demolishing biscuits whilst spying on their friends' mums' facebook. On second thoughts, I'll get that Interpol cd...

From New Earrings To Bobbie Gentry

Guilty of yet another detour in the supermarket, I've ended up with more earrings. Dangly and not ones to wear if you were trying to wedge a phone between your ear and a hunched shoulder, their silver wire fiddly configuration reminds me of these:





                 

      

Forgetting their name, googling "bendy wire beaded Indian toy" got "DIY budgie playground" and "why cats might like chewing wire". I may need to know those things one day....

These mandala patterns........ 

                                                        

            

.......remind me of a Sonia Delaunay painting that stopped me in my tracks at the Tate when I was 17:

And so far this evening we have been playing Deacon Blue. And, blow me down. There's that Bobbie Gentry cover...

A Postful of Orange

Tonight we have cd's flying out of the cupboard, left right and centre. The rotting joists are dipping even more with the weight teetering next to the cd player.... Why I have not yet become an iPod convert I don't exactly know... maybe something to do with liking to have sleevenotes, cover art, info that comes with cd's, shards of plastic shearing off cheaply assembled cases...

So far we have known and lurved Sawdust (on which lurks a far more listenable version of romeo & juliet and an interesting Shadowplay cover), His'n'Hers, Urban Hymns, and now Electric Landlady. This one's getting all a bit samba-esque, albeit underlined by the tragedy with that speedboat. S'pose if I had an iPod I'd move on swiftly to There's A Man Works Down The Chipshop Swears He's Elvis.

Last night I flicked over to the many-shades-of-tangerine that is Mary Portas' dynamic coiffure. The marvellous Ms Portas was battling on behalf of people allegedly daft enough to buy pieces of furniture too large for their homes. She spoke to a salesman who earned £57k in commission by selling sofas to such people. Amazing.

And then, for a bit of late-night retrorama and pathos, I caught the Ruth Jones being Hattie Jacques thing. It came over pretty well, although ended with sadness and broken vases in a hotel room. However I lurved the delightful styling details du jour, such as this CatherineHolm kitchen ware. I may even be buying the Hattie biog, as long as its packed with Smiths-cover-worthy photos.

Trashsparkle's Tuneful Times

Having a good vibeful few days....

• Bought necklaces in Dorothy Perkins to Gorillaz' On Melancholy Hill
• Saw Blur's 1999 gig on Sky Arts
• Caught a load of stuff about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - I had so underrated them! The drummer Stan Lynch was so cute I ended up watching most of the Bogdanovich documentary...
• And toast'n'tea'n'sunshine this morning to Lynsey de Paul; the boys do not approve of this cheesiness, so that could be weaponry for me for when they have been BAD :)
• Meanwhile we are now playing the Beatles, and the 11 year old is exploring the Paul McCartney-replaced-by-lookalike-conspiracy stories from the sixties...

I'm Starting My Christmas List!

All I Want For Christmas (so far) Is:

1. Keef's autobiography, of course
2. This!!!! http://www.dollreference.com/showbiz-babies.html
Oh, I can sooo feel a collection-addiction coming on! You can get Mama Cass, Bobbie Gentry, The Monkees...
(numbers 3 to 99+ on The List will, of course, appear over the next few weeks...)