Sunday Summary | best served chilled

Hello to you, FOQ!

I was all poised to start this post with this meme:

{Oh look, I put it in anyway | via here}

{Snow, lite}

However, the 'sner' seems to have all but melted away round these parts since this morning's liberal dusting. Now, far be it from me to channel my inner Lucy:

but if you've ever tried to travel anywhere in whimsical weather (or in fact, any actual weather, on a day that ends with 'y') you'll know that the struggle is real, so actually the fact it's all but gone is a blessing.

Sorry, 'sner'-lovers.

... Egads, when did I become so cheerless?!

Anyway. Back to business!

This week, I have mostly been ...

Reading

and finishing

I love that Cheryl Strayed replies to each of the letters in the book as if she is addressing a friend in great need of advice.

To my absolute shame I am currently Between Books having not quite opened:

but on Saturday morning I echewed (bless you) the freezing temperatures and sat in my cosy bed with the electric undersheet on low (#livingthedream) and had some quality time with a keg o' coffee and a stack o' mags including The Simple Things

and Stylist (which I only read for Lucy Mangan these days):

And yes. that is indeed the very same range of bed linen as Paul Spector's surviving victim, Annie, had in The Fall.

That doesn't make me feel mildly uneasy at all.

And speaking of, I have indeed been ...

Binge-watching ...

... my way to the very end of Series 2 of the aforementioned:

{"Oi! Which one of you just called me Scully?" | The Fall | on Netflix US}

and while there were gaping plot holes and character lapses a-go-go in the second series (oh, creepy babysitter Katie has a surname now? And what's her deal anyway? And how did the very little Olivia age a year in a fortnight? Oh, yeah. Telly Roolz) it ended on a hawge cliffhanger.

Bring me Series 3 posthaste. (Please and thank you.)

Also, on YouTube, via Gorgeous Glenda of the Broken Elbows, James Corden's Carpool Karaoke with the superlative and very cackly Adele. This is just ... brilliant.

Especially when she starts rapping.

Singing

... or something that attempted to approximate singing at Dan's Birthday Shindig.

We were, sadly, sans Charlie and Glenda (we missed you very muchly); but along with belated-birthday-boy Dan himself, the Collective there present included Jos, Paul, Jenny (to whom we wish a happy actual birthday!) Pete, Alun, Martin, Ali and Oli. 

Pete rocked out an excellent rendition of 'Absolute Beginners' (with his very own man-fan in the foreground and yes, I'm crediting Jos with that moniker), Dan paid homage to this fella:

... oh wait, sorry, no, my bad -- this fella:

{Easy mistake to make, though, right?}

and Alun and Jos followed the spurious and largely subtextual 'Wedding Singer' theme:

{#I have daaaayaaaanced ... inside your eyyyyyyes ...#}

with a bit o' Culcha Club. Friends, I'm giving you time to realise your crime. (Just kidding, it was great, complete with dance moves and everything and actual people on the dance floor enjoying it.)

{Birthday boiiii}

{#entourage}

{Jenny, Paul, Quirk}

{At some point in my life I'll work out where the camera is on my phone
and ruddy-well look into it | oh and probably learn not to drink more wine
than my sanity levels can handle}

{Quirky low-light group shot of us rocking out to a lorra lorra Cilla | thanks, Paul!}

Waffle-hacking

That sounds more perverse than it actually is.

Sorry.

In short, take 1 ready-made cake mix. I used this pack (below) but others are, of course, available:

{chocolate sponge mix}

Add water and eggs as directed.

Ladle into the waffle-maker.

Bake/cook/waffle for 3-4 minutes.

Remove. Marvel at how you essentially just made cake in four minutes.

Take Instagram shot of chocolate waffles. Rebrand them choffles.

Smear choffles with any of the following: ice cream, cream, jam, cherry conserve, chocolate spread.

Devour.

You're welcome.

Thanks to Jos for sending me the "hack yo' waffles" ideas on Pinterest ages ago:

{via here}

Not going to lie, some of the ideas are completely off-the-grid mad. Waffle hot dogs?! Really?!

Pinterest Pin of the Week

{Magic ... genius ... it's all the same}

Weekly Web Finds

... Eh. I think I'm just going to dispense with these for now until something worth sharing pops up. Agreed?

Before I sign off, though, let's just have a quick moment in honour of the -- gah, late -- David Bowie.

{gif artwork by Helen Green | via Charlie}

Who to me will always be Jareth the Goblin King.

"You have no power over me." Really? No, au contraire.

And in honour of our own little Carpool Karaoke moment on Tuesday night I hereby dedicate this to Jos, Charlie and Fern:

{Perfect Day '97}

and this one to Paul (who wasn't actually born when the film came out which makes me feel ancient!):

Oh and one more: here's a truly gorgeous cover of Space Oddity by beardy wonder Passenger. It'll give you chills or at the very least make you a little leaky of tear ducts.

All right so maybe it sounds like he's using a tin can as an emergency lavatorial receptacle. But aside from that. Gorgeous, no?

And lest we forget ...

"Something vexes thee?"

RIP Alan Rickman.

Forever the Sheriff of Nottingham, and the best thing about Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (sorry, Georgina, I'm discounting Costner, because he's yours, obvs):

And watching this bit of Love Actually at Christmas

{That look of sheer bemusement. <3 it.}

will never be the same again.

--

Well, with any luck I might have more to report next week.

Luck being, me being lucky enough to put some Plans in the Filofax and Follow Them Through.

With lots of love, hugs, mittens and snoods ...

qb xx

Sunday Summary

This week, I have mostly been…

Reading | Perfect, by Rachel Joyce

…author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry which knocked my walking socks off last year.

{via Goodreads}

I’m not far into Perfect but here’s the general idea: in 1972, two seconds were added to time. Young Byron Hemmings believes he has witnessed the adding of the seconds, but when he tries to make his mother, Diana, aware of the phenomenon, it has a devastating knock-on effect on their day.

Joyce writes with an easy, accessible style but I have to say I’m not enjoying Perfect as much as I did Harold Fry. There seems to be too much effort on the author’s part to create a sense of place through deliberate reference to brand names, programmes and publications of the time, and it jars with me a little. But I may well get over that by the end of the novel.

Listening | to Ellie Goulding and Passenger

…the two albums I downloaded for 99p each last week. 

Ellie Goulding is, as ever, magic – and Halcyon Days sounds equally amazing underwater! Here's Burn for your delectation:

And Passenger. Oh, Passenger.

I think I’m in love. You had me at All the Little Lights.

He reminds me a little of a cross between Amy Macdonald and the Guy from Once and yet he’s also unique. His best-known track to date, Let Her Go, has recently been nominated for a BRIT – and here’s for why. It’s just a gorgeous song.

Watching | RENT in concert

My sister booked tickets to the 20^th Anniversary RENT concert performance at the Hackney Empire last night, and in short, it was terrific. I’ve never seen RENT live before – my knowledge of the musical is based purely on the excellent 2005 film adaptation starring Idina Menzel, Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms and Taye Diggs among others:

The live performance is a slightly different kettle of fish – much like the stage production of Les Mis, every line of dialogue is sung whereas some is spoken on film. And the concert performance is different still as movement is limited to work around the band, who are also on stage.

RENT is based on Puccini’s 'La Boheme', and takes place at the end of the 1980s, centring on a group of friends “living with, not dying from, disease” under the cloud of AIDS and HIV.

All the cast members are great but in the performance we saw last night there were a couple of absolutely stand-out performances by Ruthie Stephens as Maureen, Kenny Thompson as Benny, Mykal Rand as Tom Collins and Ian Stroughair as Angel. 

***SPOILER ALERT*** 

There's a scene towards the end of the musical where Tom is eulogising at Angel's funeral to a reprise of I'll Cover You (the original of which is a magnificent love song for Collins and Angel) and overhead is played a film of Angel removing her wig and make-up -- it's a moment of pure vulnerability which, paired with the depth of Rand's voice, was just perfect last night. Sneef!

http://rentinconcert.co.uk/

Right, time for QB's Internet Trawlings of the Week

# Over 100,000 images from the Wellcome Library have been made available to the public:

{A man standing on his hands from a lying down position. Photogravure after Eadweard Muybridge, 1887.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London}

# Is the end nigh for the iPod?

# {Adopts resonant, prophetic movie-trailer-voice} Angelina Jolie is MALEFICENT -- check out the trailer. She's scary.

Also, the soundtrack song, Once Upon a Dream, sung by Lana Del Rey is available for free on Google Play for a limited time. GP, you are spoiling us!

{Witches be trippin'.}

# I have a feeling I may have featured some similar images before but -- 33 Amazing Ideas That Will Make Your Home Awesome

{See-through bath. Really don't know if I love this or fear it! via here}

# And finally ... Someone didn't get the memo that the clue's in the name, here: 

{via The Poke (and my friend Evie who has unlimited resources of internet silliness)}

Peace out, y'all. 

And avoid supermarket trolley bays. They're bloodbaths.