I swear, all my posts this week are just going to come under the broad category of ‘cheering myself up’. I’m still ill, I’m tired, I have a little bit of my voice back but not a lot, and I’ve graduated from Gossip Girl to America’s Next Top Model. I’m unbelievably bored. I was hoping to use today either to do some fun projects or to crack on with the mountain of work I have, and instead I’m just useless, utterly utterly useless.
What can you do when you barely have the energy to walk up the stairs? Well, I decided to paint my nails. I’ve had a bit of a bare nails moment going on for the last few weeks, because I wanted to give my nails a break from the endless parade of colours I’d been abusing them with since Fashion Week. I’d got really bored of uniform nails, and for one week I even had every nail a different colour. I liked the way it looked, but it wasn’t exactly ideal for when I needed to do a quick touch up of my nails on the train. But I fancied doing something a little different today.
Probably my favourite colour combination is blue and gold. If you haven’t picked up on my Marie Antoinette/Versailles obsession yet, I’ll just reiterate it for you once again. I think it’s such a beautiful combination, and I liked the idea of recreating this on my nails. It makes me think of pale Spring skies and shards of sunlight, or the way the Autumn sun shines through leaves, illuminating them. I purchased the Rococo gold leaf lacquer from Space NK in Tunbridge Wells a couple of years ago, and despite an initial phase of wearing it frequently, I’ve kind of left it alone. It’s got formaldehyde in, which smells quite a bit and makes me feel like Damien Hirst. But today I needed serious perking up, and so out it came. I hope you like the results. What’s your favourite nail varnish/colour combination?
Lazy Sunday post to cheer me up as I’m lying on the sofa feeling sorry for myself. After a couple of weeks of tearing around, far too much alcohol, way too much exercise, not enough clothing to combat the cold weather and heaps of late nights, I’ve unsurprisingly got a bit ill. For the first time in my entire life, I’ve lost my voice. Yesterday evening it went completely and utterly. So I’ve been lolling around watching Gossip Girl, writing my To Do list, and drinking many cups of lemon and honey. I was hoping to do a micro-project today, and create an inspiration board (‘real life Pinterest’ as I’m dubbing it.)
It’s another exciting week coming up, so hopefully I’ll be able to talk again by Tuesday, although not all my friends agree, the meanies. I think they’re quite enjoying me not being able to talk. On Tuesday I’m off to the launch of a new ‘cocktail initiative’. Yeah, that’s a thing. Dubbed ‘Skinny Sippers vs Huge Hitters’, it’s this new concept in the drinks world, being launched at Apres London. I’ve seen a list of some of the cocktail, and they sound AMAZING. I’m a cocktail freak anyway, so I’m really excited to be going to the press launch. Then Wednesday I’m off to the Nelly.com launch party in London, more info on that later in the week. Nelly.com is like the Nordic equivalent of ASOS, now being launched for the UK. Apparently the first 300 girls to turn up get free shoes, so…elbows at the ready. Then the rest of the week will be spent writing and working. Also got something very interesting coming up with ace jewellery website MyFlashTrash.com, who have the most beautiful selection of jewels, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
In the meantime, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to Gossip Girl and my sofa. Even blogging has really taken it out of me!
That title sounds like a Lambrini tagline, right? Not that I’ve ever drunk the stuff, but still…
Life It’s been quite the crazy week, life-wise. While last week was insanely busy with doing stuff, this week has been mostly spent working at home. I tell you what, readers – I’d got to the end of my tether with freelancing all the time. I’ve been so lucky since I last left the office environment last June. I honestly never expected to be able to be my own boss, and it’s not something I planned at all. But project after project came in, affording me huge freedoms, and the chance to get paid to write; not something I thought I’d be doing for a very long time. But this month? I found myself between projects, very poor, and desperately yearning to flirt over a photocopier or make some foul instant coffee in an office kitchen.
Oh, obviously it was more than that. I wanted some structure, the knowledge of a regular paycheck, and a chance to actually reclaim my weekends. I read a wonderful quote on Twitter the other day, and sadly I can’t remember who said it, but it was something like ‘Being a writer is like having homework for the rest of your life’. And that’s truly how it feels. Can you remember that Sunday night/end of the holidays slightly sick feeling? The panic of ‘oh GOD, I’ve left it so late! This is insane. I can’t manage it. Can I?’ And that’s what I’ve been having a lot lately. Even if you get on top of things you still have more to do. It’s weird – it’s the same thing that makes me love writing!
So, I’d been applying for full time jobs and part time jobs. Part time would probably be ideal – that way I can keep doing the things I’ve worked hard to do, as well as having a bit of stability. I haven’t applied for a job or used my CV in over a year, and it’s been slightly exciting and slightly weird to do so. I got my first rejection on Thursday! I got a bit upset at first and then grew up, got over myself and forgot about it after an hour or so. It is odd though – I’d got used to talking my way into jobs or projects. For the past year it’s just been a matter of going ‘yeah, that sounds really interesting, I’m up for that’, and you get to do it, because the person employing you has specifically sought you out/knows your skills. Anyway, one rejection, but a rather interesting top secret project has also popped up. I’m saying nothing for now, but it has massive potential for awesomeness.
What else was awesome? I popped up to South Kensington to the Becca boutique, to review eyelash extensions for LadyMPresents.co.uk. I’ve thought about getting some for ages, so it was nice to try them. It’s definitely taken some getting used to – I crawled out of bed looking like a glamour puss and freaked myself out in the mirror this morning – but now I can do my entire makeup in about 3 minutes. Foundation, bit of bronzer, bit of lip balm, good to go. YES. Full review will be going up on LadyMPresents.co.uk next week, and I’ll be sure to link y’all, with some photos for good measure.
Last night I went to my very first TV recording. I’d heard that one of my heroes, Adam Buxton, was recording a TV version of his ‘BUG’ shows that he regularly hosts at the BFI Southbank. India and I saw him at Latitude last year and cried with laughter, then we saw him do BUG on the Southbank, and that was extremely awesome as well. Since seeing him at Latitude, I’ve listening to days worth of Adam and Joe radio shows, and they have truly made my life better. At the end of 2011/start of 2012, I was going through some difficult times with the end of a relationship, and general Winter blues, and honestly? Adam & Joe made it all better. Definitely should be prescribed to unhappy people. Since then I’ve turned into an A&J superfan. It’s against my nature to get so obsessed with stuff. I get bored extremely easily and, well…I’m waaaaay too cool for superfannish behaviour. (Ahem.)
But I made an exception for these chaps. I now know what Justin Bieber fans must feel like. I was massively overexcited about seeing Adam finally get a well-earned break with this TV show, and I wasn’t disappointed. We turned up at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, not really knowing what to expect – although I did get a bright pink wristband (YES) and the camp man checking us in said that my name was ‘amazing’ and that I ‘should be on Downton Abbey’. It’s a funny old business, TV recording. We had to do stuff like recording laughter – we were directed to do ‘polite laughter’, and then slightly more hysterical laughter, and then all out insane laughing, cheering, and clapping. It’s for this reason that I have no voice today.
I have to give massive ‘props’ (is that right??!) to Mr Buxton. I thought he was brills before, but he worked SO HARD. He had to stick to the autocue and often redo things a couple of times, but make the audience laugh each and every time. He was just amazing to watch – he would also keep joking about inbetween recording, so the audience had a proper evening of comedy instead of just stop/start-ing all night. He must have been absolutely exhausted, but he kept really cheerful throughout the evening, which kept the audience in a good place. I have a huge amount of respect for anyone presenting a show – Dr Buckles had an earpiece in with a producer talking to him, loads of camera people, the usual stress of a live recording, and obviously an autocue to do, and certain places to stand.
Talking about certain places to stand – one of the markers had come off the floor of the set, and because I was in the front row, Mr Buxton decided to use me as a marker! He asked me my name, so I told him, and then he said ‘Amelia, you’re looking very beautiful tonight’ (I’m not making this up, it really happened), and then he said he was going to stand in front of me. He made a joke about that being a bit provocative, and he did a ‘sexy’ dance across the stage. I seriously think that my own wedding will have to compete quite hard to improve on last night, because that pretty much made my life. Anyway, all round it was a fantastic night, and I have even more respect for Adam after seeing it. Today, I’m happy, achy, and lacking in voice, and it was all worth it. Check out the video below to see Adam in action. I love you byeeee!
A while ago I wrote about the Teenage Cancer Trust, a phenomenal charity who both facilitate support and recovery for young people suffering from cancer, and also provide education within the school system. They were actually on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour this morning talking about what they do and the importance of education. As I’m being a Speedy Gonzalez in writing this post, the programme isn’t actually on iPlayer yet, but if you want to hear it you can go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer later today and search for ‘Woman’s Hour’. You can read the post I wrote about TCT so you can get some background on the charity: – or you can also visit www.teenagecancertrust.org.
I promised to let you know about ways you could get involved, so here we go. The 24th of May is going to be ‘Time for T’ day. Essentially, we want people to get together and raise some money by doing an activity that begins with the letter ‘T’. So turn up to work in tuxedos and tiaras, play table tennis, host a tea party, do some sponsored shots of tequila…we’d really like people to have some fun and raise some money. It doesn’t matter how big or small the event you organise is, or if you literally bring in some cakes to work and sell them under the title of afternoon tea. Get creative or keep it simple. I’ll personally be avoiding the tequila (my friends know why, right guys? Ahem.) But I’ll most likely be doing something afternoon tea based, as that’s much more up my street.
We’d really like as many people as possible to get involved, and we can offer you all the support necessary. Go to www.teenagecancertrust.org/timefort to get more information or your free fundraising pack, or you can contact me via this blog, or via ameliasimmons@hotmail.co.uk. I can’t stress enough how amazing it would be to get a lot of you involved. You don’t need heaps of props or complicated ideas – you could bake a treacle tart and sell each slice for a small donation. So start thinking about what you’d like to do! We’ll help you out however you choose to do it.
I’ll be tweeting, Facebooking and probably blogging more about it as the event gets closer. I hope to hear some of your ideas soon!
(Not a rude title. I genuinely saw some dinosaurs)
So my last blog post finished on Thursday night, because I’d broken through the 1000 word mark with a vengeance. On Friday I headed back up to London for some National Gallery and dinosaur fun, because it was the perfect remedy to a champagne and fashion filled week. I love the Natural History Museum very much, and I spotted two amazing things on Friday that I’d never seen before: 1. A dinosaur whose name translated as ‘chicken mimic’, and 2. A dinosaur called ‘Albertosaurus’. I’m not sure if I can describe quite how delighted I was about this. Watch out! Here’s the Tyrannosaurus Rex…and over there, you can see the Diplodocus, and ambling over the hill is….Albertosaurus.
The Natural History makes me very happy, and if you haven’t been in a while, I strongly suggest you do so IMMEDIATELY. Well, maybe not right now, but, you know. That said, if you can get to Oxford, their Natural History Museum is wildly superior because you can actually TOUCH STUFF. Yes. I know. It’s an illicit thrill. And the National Gallery is always fun, and I’m always wearing the noisiest shoes in the world. Again, I would urge you to make a visit. It’s so easy to overlook places like this, because you went when you were at school, or you think they’re too touristy, but honestly? It’ll make your life a bit better if you go. Also, you can tell me if I’m odd because I still find the animatronic T Rex in the NHM really rather scary.
So Friday was perfectly lovely, and Saturday I raced over to beautiful Italian restaurant La Luna in Godalming, for a family party. Specifically, my aunt and uncle’s 40th wedding anniversary. I’m quite conscious these days of writing stuff in my blog that only I will care about, and that I should just write it in my diary and be done with it, but I wanted to share this. My family are absolutely wonderful, and I am so so proud of all of them. We’ve got quite a big family, and quite a few different generations, making family parties absolutely brills.
As I said, I’m not going to bore you with infinitesimal details, although the food was absolutely tremendous, and if you’re in Godalming you should definitely give La Luna a try. But I will just say briefly what an absolutely megadude my Uncle Chris is. A 40th wedding anniversary is a Ruby thingamajig, and Uncle Chris had bought my beautiful Auntie Sandie a gold ring with three rubies in it. Here’s the bit which qualifies him for megadude status: as he knows the staff of the restaurant really well, he’d got them to pop the ring into my aunt’s chocolate mousse, where she was amazed to discover it. What?! Absolutely adorable, and such a romantic gesture.
He then made an amazing speech about how much he loved her, and how lucky he was – my Auntie Sandie is a completely phenomenal woman, so I don’t blame him – and then she in turn made a speech. I tried videoing them, but I was crying AND laughing so I’ve achieved a Blair Witch style shaky cam effect. When we were back at their house afterwards, Uncle Chris spoke some wise words to me about love and life, and also told me that he’d managed to secretly book the honeymoon suite they stayed in after their wedding, for this weekend.
They’re both such sweet, kind, thoughtful people, and it made me feel so proud and happy to be at the celebration. The loveliest thing of all is that, when talking to them, they each thought they were so lucky to be with the other! I just wanted to share the experience with you all because I found it really moving and inspiring to see how in love two people were after 40 years, despite life’s ups and downs. I feel like being a part of my amazing family has taught me some great values, as well as making me believe in love! I hear so many cynical people talking these days that I love things like this. It probably explains why I’m a bit of a romantic idealist, and that isn’t something I intend to change. I’m a lucky girl. If you’re still reading, why not give your family a call? See your parents? Hang out with your cousins? Family is the most important thing, and let’s not forget that.
Thought I’d pop in a nice T Rex reference in the title for you, just so you can get it stuck in your head all day long. It’s also appropriate, because of what I got up to on Monday. It’s been an obscenely busy week, and I’ve been from Guildford to Sussex to Leamington Spa to Sussex to London to Sussex….Sleeping in my own bed has become a luxury of the highest order this week! It’s been an extremely exciting week – though very, very tiring – and I thought I’d share it with all of you. It’s been insanely busy but I’m finally free today, to bake cakes and loll around, and to read the beautiful copy of ‘Style Me Vintage’ that the charming Naomi Thompson sent me!
Mr B, the Gentleman Rhymer If you’re not acquainted with Mr B, then I seriously suggest you sort yo’ life out. Mr B aims to bring old fashioned values (ish) and elan to the art of hip hop, forging a new musical form called ‘chap hop’. While he may often sample rap in his ‘recitals’, as he calls them, he’ll usually perform in a three piece suit, and his moustache is always in tip top condish. India and I sort of found him by accident at Latitude last year. It was a rainy Thursday night in July (yeah, THANKS, England), and we actually just perched ourselves in the poetry tent to shelter from the rain. Little did we know that we were about to embark on one of the finest musical experiences of our lives.
We were lucky enough to see the chap at the Boileroom in Guildford on Monday, and we weren’t disappointed. We also managed to push ourselves through to the very front, so there was nothing between us and Mr B apart from a pair of tweed trousers and a microphone. We also saw an incredible group perform called ‘UkeJam’. I suggest you look them up if you like ukuleles, and jamming. I hope you like jamming too. I also recommend you Youtube Mr B, because he has a magical power whereby he makes everything right with the world. Try it. If you’re having an appalling day, Mr B will make it vanish. If you get a chance to see him live, you’ll find yourself feeling all warm inside. That’s the sensation of your cockles being thoroughly warmed. Enjoy!
After lunch in Guildford on Tuesday, then a race home to finish a job application and do some writing, I had something completely different to do. On Wednesday I had a bit of a journey to go for a networking event. I’m not going to go into detail or even mention any names, but let’s just say, it really wasn’t for me. I have rather specific taste, and…well, this wasn’t to it. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. So with that in mind, on to Thursday!
Fortnum & Mason’s Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon My editor Rachel at LadyMPresents.co.uk received an invitation to go to the launch of the Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon at Fortnum’s. I’ve been madly in love with the place since I was small and my parentals took me there, and as Rach was unable to go (she’s a strong contender for ‘busiest woman in the world’) she asked if I’d like to take her place. Would I?! Stepping over the threshold into a haven of true Englishness was a wonderful feeling. We were greeting not only by the fantastic PR team, but also by a chap playing a grand piano. I can’t quite put into words the glorious feeling of well-being that settled on me the longer I stayed in the tea salon, but I’ll just say that it made me phenomenally happy to know that things like this still exist.
I’m writing the event up in full for Lady M Presents, so won’t go into all the details here, but I’ll just say that despite the full blown, cockle-warming Englishness of the occasion, it also fulfilled my Marie Antoinette fantasies. If you’ve seen Sofia Coppola’s film, you might remember the abundance of cakes and cocktail saucers. It was like that. Endless champagne being poured, tea-based cocktails, and cakes EVERYWHERE. Sumptuous macaroons, phenomenal cherry and almond cakes, a reinterpretation of a peach melba…I almost cried. And they just kept coming. Waiters were moving constantly across the room, bearing plates of food. In the cold, hard times of this double dip recession (although surely we’ve passed double dip and we’re now the equivalent of some grossly unhygienic party guest who’s thrusting their carrot stick into the hummus repeatedly?) this was the perfect remedy. Check LadyMPresents.co.uk later in the week for my full write up.
Sundance After Fortnum’s, we dashed along to the O2 to see a film as part of the inaugural London incarnation of the Sundance festival. We had tickets to a film called ‘Liberal Arts’, directed by and starring an actor called Josh Radnor. I’d never heard of him, but I was reliably informed by my companion that he was in a TV show called ‘How I Met Your Mother’, which is, I believe, the methadone to the heroin of Friends. That aside, the film was absolutely incredible, and well worth seeing when it’s released in cinemas in the Autumn. It’s ostensibly about a 35 year old man who falls in love with a 19 year old student called Zibby, played by the magnificent Elizabeth Olsen. I unashamedly love the entire Olsen family, so I was happy about this.
The love story element is quite reminiscent of Lost in Translation, but it’s extremely well played and cleverly done. 35 year old Jesse (Radnor) doesn’t seem to just be in love with Zibby, but with youth itself, that he now feels is something he lacks. It’s a fascinating portrayal of getting older, and yet not being Old. Jesse in turn is young in the eyes of his old professors. If you’ve had an arts education like me, please see this film. It turns over ideas about how the arts can slightly mess with your mind a little bit, and seal you too much inside your own head, or your own romantic ideas about life. There’s so much I could say about the film, but I’ll try and keep it short. The performances were masterful, including a wonderful and surprising turn from Zac Efron, of all people. The soundtrack is also beautiful, containing lots of classical music, and the setting for the film is the verdant campus of Kenyon University in Ohio.
In terms of themes, it really resonated with me. Not just the arts education, which I’ve had a double whammy of with my English and Drama degree, but I also found I identified with both Zibby and Jesse in different ways. There was a comment on how young people talk in constant hyperbole – ‘this is the best song EVER!’, which is something I do an awful lot. Even though I’m a long way off 35, I’ve been struggling with the idea of getting older lately, although I’m not sure why. In the Q&A at the end, Radnor said some interesting things: ‘There’s an arrogance to youth. You don’t understand that time is happening. Then suddenly, you’re not the youngest person in the room’. But ultimately, the film was about acceptance of getting older, or being at a different stage in your life, saying ‘what gifts are here for me?’ I can’t recommend the film enough, and I’ll definitely be seeing it again.
So, that was Monday til Thursday of my week…another post coming soon just to finish things off, but I’m SO HAPPY to be at home this Sunday, and looking forward to chilling and baking!
ameliaflorencesimmons 
