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 (second time lucky?)

Gotta love technology. I spent a good hour drafting this Summary, only to discover on clicking Publish that it hadn't been saving for, well, let's say 45 mins of that time.

Here's hoping you might get yourselves some full Summary action this time. (Wait, is that an oxymoron?)

So! This week, I have mostly been...

Reading | two books! Yes! Two at a time! I'm turning into my father.

This is what I'm reading during the day:

and during the evening (i.e. in the bath):

The only similarities between the two are the presence of a female, and a grey wash, on the covers.

I did have to smile at the opening paragraph of chapter 5 of How to Be a Woman, which echoed my sentiments precisely on clothes shopping as explored at length in my Contemplation.

...Personally, I find the idea that women are supposed to 'love' shopping bizarre -- nearly every woman I know wants to cry after 45* minutes of trawling the high street looking for a shirt, and hits the gin with alacrity upon the sad occasions where jeans have to be found. 

-- How to Be a Woman | Caitlin Moran

* they lasted that long? Really?

Also, who knew there were so many abundant terms for one's lady-bits? I do, now. And some descriptions still make me snort with laughter. Best I keep reading this at home, then. Follow Caitlin Moran on Twitter here.

Discovering | What Makes a Children's Classic?

On Thursday, workfriends Clare, Evie and I rocked up to this discussion organised by the Children's Book Circle. The panellists were author Kate Saunders, Waterstone's head book-buyer Melissa Cox and (my greatest reason for attending) journalist and author Lucy Mangan.

OK, the promise of marmalade sandwiches and ginger beer were also a pull.

The discussion opened with the three panellists nominating their favourite children's classics: Kate Saunders ventured Five Children and It (E Nesbit), the sequel of which she is currently working on; Lucy Mangan nominated The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) and the more contemporary Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness. Melissa Cox cited Little Women (Louisa May Alcott -- the edition not including Good Wives!) as her favourite and thus endeared me to her for the rest of the evening. She also cited as her contemporary classic Dead Man's Cove (Lauren St. John) which has hints of Enid Blyton**.

  

 

I took notes. Because I'm a geek. And while I won't bore you with a full transcription I will surmise the salient points of what makes a children's classic:

-- Innovation plays a key part in making a classic

-- Classics provide a circle of safety, a point of entry into a protected, magical world

-- In a saturated market, nostalgia endears an adult to a classic and inspires them to pass the book down to their own children

-- Many of what we term 'classics' hail from the Victorian/Edwardian era (although the three panellists also agreed that The Worst Witch, now 40 years old, is also a classic -- this agreement made me want to marry all three of them.)

-- There is a finite pool of children's books we can genuinely call 'classics'

-- Overall a classic is an exciting story and provides pure escapism. And it has to be well written. "Quality will win out," Kate Saunders rightly said.

You can also get a gist of how the discussion went down from the CBC's Twitter feed from the night, here.

** The only point I disagreed with was that Enid Blyton wasn't considered good enough to be a classic author -- yet her works still sell and are in demand by today's children.

Watching | The In-Betweeners

I identify all too closely with Will. 'Nuff said.

Reminiscing and Pinning

I've spent a lot of time on Pinterest this week, and I've set up a small cluster of boards that I keep going back to ogle, namely this one:

Acceptable in the 80s

It's a veritable feast for the nostalgic eyes of little tidbits from my childhood that other people of my generation have pinned. And it's brought back so many tiny little memories!

For instance:

That blood pressure monitor could really cut off your circulation.
But I remember that the stethoscope actually worked pretty well for a toy!

Look at the detail in that artwork!

And because I am a huge book geek I'm also pinning to a Vintage Ladybird Book pinboard via my work Pinterest account:

 

a vintage children's book pinboard:

and a vintage Enid Blyton book pinboard:

Who were the Saucy Jane family? The mind boggles.

And in the spirit of reminiscence, I also caught up with some ol' workmates earlier this week. The memories -- and vino -- did flow. Top night. Not even blighted by me leaving my purse in the restaurant. Like a drunken eejit twit.

And finally...

Baking

Yep. Made lemon drizzle cakes from a recipe in issue 21 of The Simple Things.

Actually, factually, nailed it.

Right, well, if Blogger allows me to, this time, I shall share with you this week's Interweb Links:

# Arnau Oriol's Commuter photo series

© Arnau Oriol

# Vivienne Rickman-Poole's #30daysofswimming photo series

© Vivienne Rickman-Poole

# Richard Herring tackles swimming etiquette again (and I love him for it)

# How many classic books have you read? Take the challenge!

# A recent Booktrust study reveals a reading divide

# Publishers respond to gender debate on children's books

# The Great British Bookshop opens online -- also read here

# One-Letter-Different Book Covers [Warning: Involves some naughtiness!]

(You got the message about me being a big book geek, right?)

# Couply adverts make singletons bitter

# Rent this mad, mad converted coastguard lookout house in Dungeness

[found via http://yourhomeislovely.blogspot.co.uk]

 

[All photos of coastguard lookout by Peter Marlow | Magnum]

And finally...

# (With thanks to Evie) Replace the jaded ol' Hollywood sign with your own name. Vast improvement. Trust me.

TTFN!

Sunday Summary

This week, I have mostly been...

Finishing | Grasshopper Jungle

...and reviewing the book on Goodreads:

"This book is gross. It's great. And I'm still trying to suss out the mentality of its lead hero, Austin. Actually I think he's still trying to do so as well.

So, here's the deal: an army of 6ft mantids are released by accident into an unassuming Iowa community to procreate with, and then eat, their victims as genetically modified bugs are wont to do.

Two teenage boys, Austin and Robby, try to make sense of the genesis of the bugs, while Austin simultaneously tries to make sense of his own genesis and Polish origins, and his feelings towards the people he loves the most: his girlfriend Shann, and Robby.

There is a lot of -- let's say -- 'self-gratification' described in the book. Lots of thoughts of copulation. And lots of references to the supposed sexual lives of historical characters. But the protagonist is a sexually curious teenage boy. It all works. Oh and there's also an egomaniacal mad scientist. And a silent golden retriever. This book has it all.

Its only flaw, and it's truly minuscule, is that by page 300+ Austin's repetition of certain facts is the tiniest bit jarring. But only a tiny bit. Up until that point the reiterative nature of Austin's narrative works.

The warning on the back of the book is: "contains explicit content". This is true. It also contains a witty turn of phrase and a story that if you tilt your head a little to one side could, could, possibly come true. Maybe."
...and tweeting the author (who then favourited, retweeted and replied to my tweet -- yay!:

...and learning that a film adaptation of Grasshopper Jungle is on the cards!

Singing a cappella

Yes, yesterday was spent in the company of 29-ish of my rock choir compatriots as we battled with a deliciously complex (6-part) arrangement of 10CC's I'm Not in Love.

The outcome was exactly, exactly, like this:

{Pitch Perfect}

OK, not exactly (there weren't any dance moves) but the outcome was pretty astounding nonetheless!

Singing a cappella is a considerably different discipline from singing to a track as we usually do. There is so much more listening involved, not just to your section but to other sections, and keeping rhythm and working out where your harmony fits in to the complete sound.

Making more plans for NYC

I've ordered this divine little Moleskine New York notebook so I can start plotting out my NYC trip day by day, borough by borough (I'm scrupulous like that!).

I'm also raaaather tempted by this book (found via Poppytalk's Instagram):

{Hello NY | Julia Rothman}

I've reserved my hotel room, and I'm making lists of Things to See (and adding them to my NY NY Pinterest board. I do want to explore the usual tourist spots, but I also want to find some hidden gems. Any suggestions?

I'm going to be walking the city (and next year I also plan to walk the 100k from London to Brighton but that's another bucket list item to check off in 2015) so, this weekend I have also been:

Walking

On Friday I managed 1h 15 from Shepherd's Bush to Clapham Junction station (roughly 4.5 miles) -- given this was my first speed-walk since last May I was pretty happy with that. Walking's always a little more enjoyable, also, if you have nothing to compete for.

Not to mention a job lot of perky rock and dance tracks to walk to. And scenes like this.

And on Saturday, when it was particularly, deliciously, warm and sunny I trotted to and from Reigate, spying signs of Spring as I went. Here's hoping the apocalyptic wet winter might actually be over...

Baking

I've just made two lemon drizzle cakes from a recipe in The Simple Things {issue 21}.

Issue 1's fudgy chocolate and raspberry brownies have always gone down particularly well when I've made them so I have high hopes for these bad boys.

Currently my kitchen smells lemonilicious. Must... restrain... self... from... breaking... into... cake...

{Twin nomingtons}

Here's your weekly webly wound-... sorry, round-up

{This week, with a distinctively bookish theme in honour of World Book Day!}

# Author Hanif Kureishi knocks creative writing courses (because all great authors are immediately born great, of course. Harrumph)

# Many British homes have shelves full of unread books. (My problem is not having enough shelves for the books I have read!)

# Check out these beautiful book cover winners @ The Academy of British Cover Design awards (including these two from Egmont)

 

# Children's reading levels plateau at Year Six

# WBD: When authors get into character

{Michael Rosen as folkloric trickster figure Till Eulenspiegel. Photograph: Cambridge Jones}

In other non-booky news:

# All hail the benefits of swimming

# A doll of 'average proportions' is to be manufactured -- a far cry from Barbie, thankfully

# 10 Things Commuting Does to Your Body

# Words and biccies

# Awesome NYC cinemagraphs by Jamie Beck & Kevin Burg

And finally ...

# Birds with arms. (Thanks, Evie, for this!)