H A P P Y L A N D

Steve Beresford & Tania Chen Duo at The Vortex Jazz Cafe. See links to the right or here

No needles involved. Just a lot of stencils and spray guns.

Super strong impact these images.

Quite fiddly especially if your tattoo is a complicated design. Then you need to layer and layer and think about which colours should be what and which colour goes on first.

They said it was easy once you get the hang of it…

and then you still have to sort out how to use the spray gun!

Shika Suki is my nearest Vintage Boutique, it is in Primrose Hill. Here you will find Fabulous vintage party dresses, vintage jewellery and bags.

I popped in there recently and my eyes couldn’t stay away from the stunning vintage christmas decorations for sale.

These gorgeous little baubles were made sometime between the 1940-60s in America and Eastern Europe.

The angels singing inside the baubles! These are certainly not your average xmas ornaments.

I don’t usually get excited about christmas decorations but these strike just the right note for me…nostalgia…and now they are sitting on my mantelpiece at home.

My friend Steve Beresford playing toy drums. Filmed by Helen Petts.

Steve and I will be playing a Toy Drum & Stylophone duet at 8pm on Saturday 20th December 2009 at The Vortex Jazz Club in Dalston, London.

You imagined it in your mind before it even existed. You read the book.    You saw the film.

Now, face the music. Ointment. You need it. You just didn’t know how much..

Click on the image of the cd cover below to go straight to iTunes.

MAC does a seasonal series of makeup talks here in London. I went to the Creative Makeup presentation at Swarovski studios close to Carnaby Street. So many girls in the audience and we were all given a glass of champagne!

The makeup artist Andrew had studied Fine Art and specialised in makeup as art for his final year project. The above image was inspired by paintings by the Art Deco style portraitist, Tamara Lempicka. The Royal Academy of Art held a retrospective of her work a few years ago and the paintings are distinctive and stylised with strong angles and cool contrasting sculptural planes of colour. Andrew used MAC creme coloured bases and powders mixed in a mixing medium for a bright re interpretation of Tamara de Lempicka’s work.

Below, he described how he had been inspired by traditional Indian coming of age ceremonies when the girls would be thrown with henna powder. He took this literally and threw pigment powders all over the model. The effect was striking and textural but I felt sorry for the poor girl who probably got a whole load of stuff in her eyes and hair. Can you imagine how long it took to wash the whole lot out?!

Here are a few examples of his mood boards and sketches which included photos of experiments and shimmering fabrics, photos of objects, or a print by Gilbert & George. Textures, colours, ideas, you can take your inspiration from anywhere.

The only problem is on a photoshoot, photographers, editors and PRs NEVER say to the makeup artist, “Yeah, do WHATEVER you want”. They instead snap..”Here are Twenty photos from other magazines…NOW SLAVE…GO COPY THEM”…Maybe this evening was just WISHFUL THINKING.

Here is Sonia Bogie the makeup artist who I know who teaches at Glauca Rossi School of Makeup.

How can students training as makeup artists get creative when a teacher like her snapped at her students all day for three months while she was trying to come to terms with her divorce and moaning on about it everyday…THE TRUTH PLEASE ? many makeup artists out there might be largely unfulfilled…so I hear on the grapevine.

At least this evening aspired beyond the reality.

After our afternoon at Fortnums & Masons’ Day Spa, Lulu and I went to Laduree across the road.

The gold leaf interior reminds me of Gustav Klimpt and adds to the hedonism of macaroon heaven!

These are the flavours we chose:  Lulu chose 2 Pistachio Macaroons; for Pat, 1 Chestnut & 1 Pistachio,

I chose 1 Licorice and 1 Red Berries; for Benedict, 1 Chocolate & 1 Coffee.

What is the appeal about Macaroons? The answer I believe is the sensuous texture – a gentle bite leading to a melting inner core, in combination with a flavour which is a clear reminder of a particular food, resulting in, for example a Pistachio, originally small hard crunchy nobbly, which has been TRANSFORMED into a rampantly smooth, creamy Macaroon OR a Licorice Macaroon which has progressed from a chewy stick into something delightful with a delicate texture.

The metamorphosis is similar to perfume, the essence of an original substance transformed into a diaphanous liquid.

There is a Laduree tea house in Harrods, Knightsbridge, London, and here’s a photograph of what I chose on their tea menu recently:

MMMMM! Say hello to my “Framboisier Pistache”, the English translation in the Laduree menu describes it as an “Almond sponge cake soaked in Kirsch syrup, pistachio cream, fresh raspberries, caramelized meringue and raspberry jam”…

Inglot’s Eyeliner Gel comes in so many colours. 100% waterproof and smearproof!

Inglot are in Westfield, Shepherds Bush, London. I must go check out again soon…

The eyeshadow trios look lovely too, again amazing selection of colours:

I’m writing a book! & I haven’t told anyone what it’s about yet…

I like to get the core of my writing done in the British Library, so I escape to the library once, sometimes twice a week.

I have a readers pass which is not easy to come by, and mine is the longest one which you can be given, that is Three Years. Prior to this I had a Five Year pass but they changed this recently, as most people on average moved residence within five years.

I’m very lucky. Some people only have a day pass and they have to re-apply.

If you want a membership you have to write in, outlining your purpose of research and what it is you want to read. A postgraduate can specify their research and supply a reference from a professor.

I was given my first pass when I did my MMus in Music Performance, hence I generally feel most at home in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Reading Room which also houses the National Sound Archives. The Sound Archives can be seen in the background upper right right side of the above photo.

Here is where I sat today…cont.

I can’t help sometimes being nosy about what fellow neighbour readers are reading, such as The Boat Voyages of the Puritan Pilgrims, or The Psychology of Women and Sexuality from what I remember most recently,

The number of brains in one room seem to have a beneficial effect on my brain and I work and write at my best in here.

…and even when you go to have a coffee and a muffin, the British Library is truly dedicated to it’s readers, almost a quarter of all the tables in the coffee shop (which has lovely cakes) have desks close to a power supply plug! Mac laptops everywhere in this place…cont.

Even when I left the reading room once it had closed, the common areas were still crowded with Macs, people on sofas and desks, pouring deep thoughts into their computers.

I love this place, the architecture, the atmosphere, the air of everyone understanding why everyone else is here. A brilliant place, on the top of my list in London!     cont…

and when I’m here my guinea pig below always come with me.

Say Hello to my Guinea Pig!

I stopped by the seventy year old flower stall on the corner of Camden High Street today and bought these glorious Cabbage Flowers. They are autumnal plants. I’ve never bought them before, but today they particularly stood out, so I chose two violet and one white cabbage flower.

They have very long quite thick stalks and are too stunning to eat.

I brought them home and put them in my special 1950’s vintage lemon stem design flower pot.