I’ve become slightly transfixed by Alice Gold’s voice. Her album is well worth a listen, crossing folky, pop-y, jazz-y lines. This was a song that lodged in my head, and I knew before I even saw it that it’d have a cute video. I also like the lyrics, which bear a bit closer listening to than you might first think. I’m an especial fan of the line ‘Take a trip on a boat down the Seine, champagne, and I’ll let you pay!’ Quite right. She looks like a painted cherub on a ceiling somewhere.
‘Austerity measures!’ I hear you cry. ‘What the devil do you mean?’ I intone back, entirely unimpressed. ‘You’ve got no money’, you clarify, slightly rudely.
Enough of the role play (but it was pretty Pinteresque, wasn’t it? I’m a great dramatist). It’s a new season, I’m bored of my wardrobe, and I don’t have enough cashingtons for a total revamp. Oh, let’s be honest. If you combined all the money I had in the world, I couldn’t even buy myself some utterly hideous dress from Matalan. You know, just in case I suddenly wanted an utterly hideous dress from Matalan. So I’ve had to actually try and be sensible, because I’m in no position to keep squandering money on bits of fluff (often literally). I’ve got two things to say to you: nail varnish, and tights.
No, this isn’t a lesson on how to darn some stockings with just a pot of nail varnish, because this really isn’t that kind of blog. Make do and mend? I’m the girl who bought a new pair of pants every day when I didn’t know where the laundertte was at university. Really. I’m a pathetic underwear lush, and clearly quite incapable of living in the real world. Where was I? Let’s get off the subject of my ineptitude. Please.
The point is, tights and nail varnish are two things that feel like luxuries, pep up your look, and don’t cost the earth. You can create a completely different feel and revitalise yourself with a dark nail or a quirkily patterned pair of tights. I’ve spotted lots of loveliness out and about, and on the old tinterweb, so I thought I’d share them with you. All tights are from Asos and naily v’s are from Topshop, because they are both bargainous and ace quality. I’m only allowing myself one ridiculous pair of tights, because I’ve been known to shred them fairly quickly. Which are your favourites? And are you going to berate me for my disgusting waste of a student loan? Well it’s too late.
Touch of bondage
Hyperreal
Daredevil
The most incredible colour ever, Gypsy Night
As the clocked ticked (well, ok, digitally refreshed) to 8am this morning, I suddenly remembered I was allowed back on Facebook again.
I haven’t bothered blogging about it since Tuesday, because there was really nothing to say. I barely even thought about Facebook, apart from feeling quite smug on Thursday and Friday, when I knew I was going to make the week away. I felt freed, because I tend to check Facebook every 10-15 minutes (I know, I KNOW), and I was surprised how easy it was to just…not do that. I can’t even begin to explain how much I got done in the past week, new projects, tons of creative stuff, and I was actually getting stuff finished. Here’s a sample of my working process:
9.00 Start working/writing/creating, lots of excitement and enthusiasm.
9.35 Quick check of Facebook. Just in case anything interesting has happened.
9.50 Might as well check Twitter and Hotmail, too. But if there’s an important email, just mark it up to reply to later.
10.10 Oh god! I wonder what so and so’s new haircut looks like! I bet it’s awful. Facebook again.
10.20 Actually, it’s quite nice. I think I might get mine done like that. *Scrolling through photos*….who’s that? I like her dress sense.
10.40 And I look down to find I’m on photo 192 of some random girl I’ve never met…time to get back to work.
10.45 Write a sentence or two.
10.55 Feeling smug and encouraged by the burst of activity. I might just Google that thing I was thinking about earlier.
11.15 Time for Facebook again…
You get the picture. It’s horrific. Or, it was. Despite not coming off Google or Hotmail or Twitter, I found those things tended not to distract me so much as I was using them for a good purpose. It was as if, by the very act of taking away the chief timewaster, I snapped into action. I’ve never worked so hard in my life.
So where do I go from here? Clearly I can’t be trusted to just….live with Facebook, on my own. I’m thinking about implementing a system where I can check it for 15-20 minutes, 3 times a day: morning, lunchtime, evening. And certainly not on my phone. I’ve been more encouraged to text or call people, instead of just lazily Facebooking them. I also enjoyed not having the Newsfeed fear: not knowing if you’re going to see something you don’t want to. Or maybe that’s just me?
I would really recommend everyone who feels that pull towards the site tries coming off it for a bit. I was so resentful about how much of my life it was taking up, and absolutely obsessive about finding out what was going on, all the time. Go on – try a week away from the ridiculous thing. See what a difference it makes to your life.
The hilariously awful first auditions, bootcamp stage, and judge’s houses are all out of the way. It’s that time of the year again, when people happily relegate both precious Saturday and Sunday evenings to angrily criticising/silently weeping over a bunch of oddly dressed people on a stage.
This year marks the much lauded (not) start of ‘X Factor: The New Generation’, which Dermot has been shoehorning in for all he’s worth. Things were looking up – the old guard had vanished, save Louis Walsh, who is still clinging like a barnacle to the oversized cruise liner of the X Factor. In came Tulisa, she of the brassy hair and street slang; Kelly Rowland, over emotional and yet strangely earnest, and Gary Barlow, who…well, everyone knows how I feel about Gary.
It started out looking incredibly promising. My issue with previous series had been the way the judges hyped up the contestants, bloating them with undeservedly excellent feedback, then choosing one or two acts to really lambast, just to feed the public appetite for blood. The other reason I lost faith last year was Matt ‘Who?’ Cardle. Jesus….but the less said about that, the better. The show seemed to become increasingly fixed, overstyled, overproduced, and out of touch with any sort of reality. I’m sure a common complaint up and down the sitting rooms of the country was ‘are those judges hearing the same thing I’m hearing?’
I liked the new wave. They were all honest with their acts, with Gary even telling Frankie ‘Seven girls names tattooed on my bottom’ Cocozza he didn’t think he was ‘the best singer’. Ace, I thought. The judges are actually saying, you know, proper things. That normal people think. People keep claiming they want to see Simon Cowell back, as he’d really tear them to shreds. I disagree – I think he became one of the worst offenders of over-hyping, and those ridiculous misleading, crowd-manipulating sentences. ‘I have to say…..we’ve made a huge mistake choosing you…..a huge huge mistake…..because……I SHOULD HAVE JUST GIVEN YOU A RECORD DEAL STRAIGHT AWAY BECAUSE YOU’RE SO BLOODY BRILLIANT’.
'Goth Juice, the most powerful hairspray known to man'
For once, I had high hopes that we’d get the honest feedback that is so essential for making X Factor compulsive viewing. Words cannot describe my horror when the aforementioned Frankie sailed through with glowing praise after the most disgustingly bad version of Ed Sheeran’s ‘The A Team’ I’ve ever heard. I must also take the time to mention the styling. My old fave, Grace Woodward, used to be responsible, and a bloody good job she did. Lord alone knows what’s happened this time – I can only assume a truckload of glitter intended for a drag queen convention had collided with a truck of glue, and attached itself to half the contestants. Frankie (sorry, I clearly have a huge issue with this poor chap) looked like an earlier, underwritten version of Vince Noir.
I feel so dispirited writing this that I don’t think I can cope with much more. I’m so so disappointed that the show is exactly how it used to be before; much too long, over the top, a complete assault on all the senses, and pumped full of contestants who previously wouldn’t have made it past the first few rounds, let alone to the live stages.
By the end of the Saturday marathon, I felt completely overwhelmed, nerves frayed, and like I never wanted to see another dairy product in my life. I don’t even know why I’m blogging about it. I suppose it’s really just to make some recommendations. The only way I found it bearable was by doing both of the following:
I have to stop writing now. I need to go and take a shower and wash away the X Factor-y remnants than are covering me in vainglory. Buh bye.
Pictures from the luminous Google images. Thanks, guys.
No, really. And yes, I am absolutely posting this after my blog on Liz Hurley, because that’s just how I roll.
Last night, I was lucky enough to catch the magnificent Jim Al-Khalili on BBC Four, in Part One his programme ‘Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity’. When I saw the title, I yawned into my sleeve. ‘Boring!’ I sighed to myself, and reached for the remote for something a bit sillier. The traumatic flashbacks to Physics lessons had begun to kick in, I’d had a long day, and I just wanted to shut my brain down.
Oh, but hang on a minute.
A darkened cellar? Candlelight? Dramatic, swooping music? The awed, yet still reassuring tones of Professor Jim? I stopped, remote still lodged in hand. A quick shot of Prof Al-Khalili clad entirely in chain mail, and the promise of a leap back to the 18th Century, and I was totally sold. The remote was shoved firmly to the side, and I turned on, tuned in, and had my mind blown.
All that said, this is not a review of the TV show. I’ll just say, watch it yourself, because it is spectacular. I’m going to talk, instead, about what grabbed me most: the works of Luigi Galvani and his nephew, Giovanni Aldini.
In the first year of my English Degree (come on, it’s got to be useful for SOMETHING), I developed an utter fascination with Frankenstein, to the extent that I even made my poor boyfriend of the time watch Kenneth Branagh’s epic production, which lasted at least three weeks, and cast ol’ Kenny in the role of a misunderstood but still maverick genius, Victor Frankenstein. That man has a serious hero complex – I dread the day that he decides to play Hitler, as it’ll be all floppy fringe, chinless heroism and grand gestures.
Where was I? Yes, literature. Anyway, I’d obviously heard the term ‘galvanism’ bandied around a lot, and being the conscientious student like wot I was, I never actually bothered to look it up. Nope, not even on Wikipedia. Well, thanks again, Jim Al-Khalili (sorry, I just like typing that. Say it out loud, it’s rather fun.) Where Volta was more pragmatic, eventually creating an early battery, Galvani thought electricity to be linked with biology, thinking instead that electrical impulses came from the movements of the muscle. I’ll skim over the part about him wanting to create a 12 foot ‘super frog’ by making various frogs eat each other, and go straight to the less insane stuff.
Galvani
Galvani conducted experiments on the legs of dead frogs, thinking intrinsic electricity in the frog was causing a charge, making the leg move. Volta and Galvani went head to head, each thinking the other completely wrong. Here’s where I got really interested. Because as anyone who has read Frankenstein will know, Victor’s early experiments and scientific findings follow much the same route. I find the ‘birth’ of the monster utterly chilling, no matter how many times I read it, or how many awful adaptations I see (not you, National Theatre/Benedict Cumberbatch, you were ace.)
So, Aldini, nephew to Galvani, had edited his theories on animal electricity, and took the research further. Instead of little frogs, he conducted experiments in public on the body of a dead criminal, freshly cut down from the gallows. He applied electrical currents to the dead body, which made the body sit upright and twist around, making the body seem alive. You may remember that at Ingolstadt, Victor explores much of the same. Mary Shelley read the writings of Aldini prior to writing Frankenstein, and I find it all the more frightful for that. I’m disgusted in myself for not knowing about these genuine experiments that formed a framework to the book.
Aldini
Anyway, a bit of a change of pace, but I really cannot recommend the programme enough. I’ll certainly be picking up Frankenstein again, and reading more about galvanism and the terrifying figure of Aldini.
A nice picture of Kenny B
Watch Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity, here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00kjq6h/Shock_and_Awe_The_Story_of_Electricity_Spark/
(Pictures courtesy of the one, the only, Google Images)
I adore Ed Sheeran, because…well, look at his hair. How can you not love him? But, I always felt he veered too much towards the ol’ mainstream that I hate so much. But by adding in the extraordinary Rizzle Kicks, that’s a bit of a problem solved in my book. I love the way Mr Sheeran sort of drifts across the screen. I first heard Rizzle Kicks on the way back from Latitude, when India and I turned to each delightedly and chorused ‘but when the sun comes up we’re still alchies!’ Anyway. Enjoy.
ameliaflorencesimmons 