Make your own Pollock

Aretha’s Hat

Ok, I know I am late to the party on this one, but wasn’t Aretha’s hat fabulous?

The clever peeps at Viximo have brought us the ‘digital’ version, which seems to have massively taken up by the Flickr community. Brilliant. Just be thankful that the lovely Jon Favreau wrote a pretty compelling speech for the main event.

Twitter goes mainstream

It started with Stephen Fry, quickly followed by Lance Armstrong, Wossy, Philip Schofield, Andi Peters and finally Russell Brand (who has nearly 10,000 followers in just 24 hours).

Yes, Twitter has gone mainstream. Part of me is excited, part of me thinks it would have been nice to have keep it just a little bit niche.

Here is a bit of look through the Twitter early years.

This is interesting though:

Family Ties

I have an interesting family,  particularly on my mother’s side. Colourful, shall we say?

I have a fascinating great aunt, Diana Athill, who is a fairly well known (in the industry) editor and writer, who has produced a series of memoirs in her later years. These are particularly fascinating for me as they give an insight into my family that you just wouldn’t get any other way. In one of her books, Yesterday Morning: A Very English Childhood, she talks in great detail about how the family lived, and of course this means I – and the rest of my family – get a first hand account of what their lives were like, particularly my grandmother who is Diana’s sister. This is something that I think we are really lucky to have access to – I imagine most people only ever really see their grandparents as ‘grandparents’, and don’t get the opportunity to know them as young people.

Di’s latest book Somewhere Towards The End is about her experiences of growing old. Now, she hasn’t had the most conventional of lives, and her experiences and views might not be to everyone’s taste, but it has certainly got people talking. At the age of 91, she is working the literary circuit like nobody’s business! The book won the Biography section of the Costa Book Awards at the beginning of January and as a result there has been a lot of interest in Diana and her work. The winner of the overall Costa Book of the Year is announced tonight. Fingers crossed!

Boy Crush

I have a new boy crush. Jon Favreau – not the actor of Swingers fame – but Barack Obama’s new Director of Speechwriting. He is pretty, (very) young – 27 for goodness sake – and with that job he’s not going to be lacking in the brain department either. Sadly, it would seem that he has already found himself some intern-esque eye candy. He’s only been there a week! Oh well.

Baby Invasion

I have just had lunch with 4 of my good friends from school (with husbands in tow). There were 5 children there too (belonging to said friends, obviously, they didn’t just turn up of their own accord), 3 of which being under 7 weeks old.

Don’t get me wrong, I love children, and I cannot wait to have my own, but really, is there nothing else to talk about? I don’t suppose I can really judge my friends until I have my own, but I’m pretty sure that they are capable of having conversations that don’t revolve around dirty nappys and breast feeding. I nearly went and joined the dads to talk about football (which I seriously object to), except just as I was about to move around the table I was given 4 week old Gracie Lane to hold, and I was a goner. Absolutely smitten. I want me one of those.

Musical blast from the past

I was scouring the gig listings in Time Out last week and came across a local gig by Giles Hedley and the Aviators. In an instant I was taken back about 17 years when a crazy Kiwi called Celine used to drive me up to the Station Tavern in west London on a Friday night (after school, I may add) to go and watch these guys play.

Giles is a phenomenal blues singer, who has the impossible sounding ability to play harmonica through his nose and his mouth at the same time.

Absolutely gutted I couldn’t go and see them, but will be looking out for their next London based gig.

Culture Vulturing in January

Ok, so a bit of an update on where I am with my London NY resolution…

I am doing pretty well so far, day 25 and one gallery and two gigs down. I went to the Annie Liebovitz exhibition at the Portrait Gallery early on in the month. I thought it was really good – a fascinating mix of professional and personal images, all mixed up together. Interesting juxtoposition of a Vogue-esque cover photo of some young bejewelled starlet alongside an extremely personal image of Susan Sontag on her deathbed.

Musically, I am really keen to see lots of bands this year. I had an interesting lunch break a couple of weeks ago – somehow won a competition to go and see Razorlight a couple of weeks ago. They were playing to about 30 of us as part of a recording for a radio show. I’m not massively into them – although I really like a couple of tracks from their new album – but it seemed like a silly thing not to go. Something different on a Friday lunchtime with less than 24 hrs notice – only in London! Johnny Borrell is tiny.

Going in quite a different direction, my sister and I went to see the Gutter Twins at the Union Chapel last week. Mark Lanegan has an incredible voice, and although clearly very rougharound the edges, he has an understated charm that has led to a mini crush on my part. We saw him play with Isobel Campbell before  Christmas, which was an amazing gig – the Union Chapel is an incredible venue.

I haven’t got anything else up my sleeve at the moment gig-wise, but the sis and I are going to see Pete Postlethwaite in King Lear at the Young Vic next month, which I am really looking forward to. Should be fab.

Absolutely love this

Eau de Boeuf?

Just before Christmas, Burger King launched a new perfume. Yes, you heard right. Perfume. 

“the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broilled meat”. Apparently.

They pulled together a brilliant site for it, which I thought was pretty damn amusing. How creepy is the King though?

And I’m really not sure about the response that Peta developed. Full marks for the speedy response though.