Two posts in one day, my what a diligent blogger I have become of late. The 2/3 of them this week have been timed though, sort of like cheating. So here's a real one, what I actually wore today, complete with holey tights & all. I have a tendency to make holes in every pair of tights I own, even wool which should be unholeable, but aren't in my deadly hands. I am also dancing to Gym Class Heroes for some reason, because this dress looks better in movement. I realised about half through today that it was St Patrick's day & thought it was possibly my Irish blood that subconsciously made me choose to wear green today.

Happy St Paddys!

Steadily over the last few years I've been losing my faith in magazines. I used to be dedicated reader of Elle, but then I realised that they started using the same articles and so I started looking for something more arty. I-D being the most available was a favourite for a few months but it's so expensive & well...a little stuck up. So I settled on Dazed and Confused as the least wanky & most generally interesting magazine I could actually get hold of every month. But, fashion magazines have always wooed me back, started with the flick through just to look at the main spreads, then I got some money & bought everything (Elle, Vogue, Dazed & I-D) all in one & gradually started buying Vogue occasionally until it lapsed at Christmas with a horrible girl from Harry Potter cheese fest. But on the train home this weekend there was no Grazia & I'd already bought Dazed so there it was Kate Winslet staring back at me.

Holy shit, the articles were more interesting. The fashion tit bits were actively interesting & the interviews with designers behind Jil Sander, D&G & Rodarte were genuinely insightful. Not only that but the repetitive, boring fashion pictures at the back were newly shot through with creativity. From the topTim Walker shooting Kirsi Pyrhonen and Lindsey Wixson, Javier Vallhonat shooting Guinevere van Seenus, Alasdair McLellan with Lindsey Wixson (again), Josh Olins shooting Arizona Muse and Barbara Palvin shot by Glen Luchford. Plus amazing adverts too, looks like the brands are back after being scared off by the recession. If you've been disaffected recently by overpriced under-inspiring magazines, I highly recommend Vogue UK April as a starting point for hopefully a better year all round!

Birthday presents!
Top - Bottom: Crystal ball so that I can see my future from The Guys (AKA Chris, Andy, Callum, Matt, Johnny, Dan), incense & incense holder from Darcy because I lost mine & never replaced it, not I can play with smoke again! Mix CD from Jesus. First photo is the cover of the two shiny things I kept from seeing Arctic Monkeys in Cardiff (or was it Birmingham...?) when they were surprisingly not heart stopping, he stole them from the pocket in my bag where they've been for years & scanned them in. The second photo is the CD which is an edited photo of um...Alexa Chung. I think he went a little too far with the lettering but hey, she ruined one of the greatest song writers of my generation & I hate her so... It's a CD of obscure Arctic Monkey's tracks, he is a fucking legend.

The 2 sweet little books are from Max & Cat, of hipster triangles & lovely things. Silvia Plath poetry from Eve, must stop unloading all my depressive shit on her, but it's a lovely lovely edition. Sketch moleskin from Heidi, to quote "empty my brain into". Sasek New York book that I've wanted for ages, mainly because since I went there I've been plotting more permanent roots back ever since. It also has the most gorgeous illustrations ever. & finally a bracelet from my boyfriend, melted copper, with the words "Yellow Bird" stamped into them. Bright Eyes, yes.

I've saved the best one from my mum for another post. & my sister bought me a ticket to the amazing Gabriel Orozco exhibition at the Tate. The skull & prints of obituary headlines are hauntingly beautiful. Possibly one of my best birthday's with a trip to London at the weekend & a day with pancakes, burgers, surprise people, surprise gifts & parties & an adventure to Weston.

Perfect.

So guess how old I am today?

This is a magically timed post (check out the time) so I'll be eating burgers with my lovely friends, pretending it's not my last birthday with us all living in the same city, or country for that matter. Anyway. 19 is such an odd number, a prime number, a stop gap between 18 & 21. It's the number of angels guarding hell in the Qur'an. I can also now buy tobacco in Alabama, Alaska, New Jersey, Utah & New York, buy alcohol in Canada & get married in Nebraska. Gotta love Wikipedia.

Things I will miss about being 18:
- Having a routine with college (however vague)
- Not having to think about the future
- Being able to turn up at work only on a Saturday & not have to completely care or take an interest in what I'm doing
- What a nice round, even number 18 is & how much I used to want to be this old when I was younger
- Not many responsibilities
- It being socially acceptable to still be living with my lovely mother

Things I look forward to about being 19:
- Free time
- Being able to do creative things for myself
- Hopefully eventually figuring out what I want to do
- Being able to pick up & go & see the people I love, wherever they may be
- Maybe getting a job that I actually want to do
- Telling little kids how old I am & then looking at me like I'm ancient (ok I can do that now, but I remember when 19 used to sound so old, now it sounds so, so very young)
- Getting more tattoos & maybe buying alcohol in Canada?

Almost 2 decades of life!

Matt Baker you are my hero. Gone from ex Blue Peter to Countryfile & The One Show, I had little hope of your morals or personality. Bravo. Delivered with a smile on his face & everything. You can watch the clip here & listen out for co woman's gasp when he actually says it, right click & save image as to populate the internet with my lovely (unfortunately tiny) gif. & before you jump to the idea that it wasn't meant like that, there are other ways to ask that aren't "How on earth do you sleep at night?" With all the venom of a pointed finger! Opps...my brother said I could get a job as a fashion blogger if I stopped talking about politics...

Too late.

So I decided to take up the 25 Songs, 25 Days challenge but instead of having it take up all my posts for the next month I'm going to do multiple Songs/Days every Friday for the next 4 weeks, sound good? Ok. Here Goes.

SONG ONE: A SONG FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD
Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison
I have to confess that it's not so much this song as it is the artist & this was the only song of Van Morrison's that I'd actively heard of to look up. Anyway, when I was little me, my mum & dad (sometimes my brother & sister as well) used to go to France every year. We'd get the ferry across & drive to somewhere nice. But driving through the country side I always remember my dad playing Van Morrison on a loop, constantly. I actually hated it at the time, because it was so repetitive, or it wasn't mine. I forget. But music wasn't really a part of my childhood so this is the best thing I could think of. (& PS How amazingly beautiful is the girl in that picture?)




SONG TWO: A SONG THAT REMINDS YOU OF YOUR MOST RECENT EX BOYFRIEND/GIRLFRIEND
What Went Wrong - Blink 182
There was a lot of bad feeling & a horrible disintegration between us at the end & so this song. With all it's angst & anger & simple acoustic guitar sort of summed it up for me. I remember I listened to this song for like 3 days straight after he went away, because before that I didn't want to listen to any of the bands we listened to together. Blink 182 being a major one of them. Now though, although it does remind me of bad times, not good, I appreciate it for the beautiful song that it is. Even minus the Travis.


SONG THREE: A SONG THAT REMINDS YOU OF ONE/BOTH OF YOUR PARENTS
Common People - Pulp
My mum is literally the best person I know. I won't bore you with more soppy crap, but basically she taught be to be political, feminist, liberal, angry, intelligent & pretty much all the good things & I thank her for all of it. She is also the funnest person to sing this song with.




SONG FOUR: A SONG THAT CALMS YOU DOWN
Lua - Bright Eyes
I didn't like this one because I don't really listen to music to calm down. So I figured it was a decent a place as any to get one of my favorite *kind of slow* songs in. It's another one I listened to on repeat for a few days. I think actually it was a couple of weeks, at the beginning of the year. It is literally so beautiful I go silent every time I hear it. It makes me think of past lives.




SONG FIVE: A SONG THAT IS OFTEN STUCK IN YOUR HEAD
Real Recognize Real - Lupe Fiasco
I think all of the songs so far I've already put up on the blog, oh well. This was another strange one because it's always different. I'll be singing a particular song all day, but once I've listened to it it's gone. This song is the only one that gets stuck there out of no where again and again over the past few years. I think it's mainly the imagery & poetry that strikes me about it & with music I'm always about the lyrics so that's what I remember. The description of "The Streets" is like so vivid & amazing to me in my white middle class head...*ahem*




SONG SIX: A SONG THAT REMINDS YOUR OF A BEST FRIEND
Self Esteem - The Offspring
I have one very awesome best friend, or platonic soulmate as it our preferred term, one Jesus Rogers, who I've talked about before on the blog & actually sort of has one of his own. Many a day/evening/summer/year has been spent on my balcony...um...bird watching whilst listening to play lists from our youth or, for some reason or another, the entire back catalog of The Offspring. So I chose this because not only because of that but also because of his taste in girls. Surprisingly he has a thing about falling in love with psychopaths...who'd have guessed?



All images from weheartit.

Thoughts?