2016 in lists

My favourite songs of the year:

1. All My Friends - Snakehips ft Tinashe & Chance The Rapper
2. Alluria - Dear Boy
3. The Ballad Of Me And My Brain - The 1975
4. Bury It - CHVRCHES ft Hayley Williams
5. Controlla - Drake
6. Desire - Years & Years ft Tove Lo
7. False Alarm - The Weeknd
8. Good Grief - Bastille
9. Greedy - Ariana Grande
10. Hands To Myself - Selena Gomez
11. Hype - Drake
12. I Took A Pill In Ibiza - Mike Posner
13. Into You - Ariana Grande
14. Let Me Love You - Ariana Grande ft Lil Wayne
15. Love Yourself - Justin Bieber
16. Miracle Aligner - The Last Shadow Puppets
17. Needed Me - Rihanna
18. One Dance - Drake ft Wizkid & Kyla
19. Paris - The 1975
20. Pillowtalk - Zayn
21. Revolution Radio - Green Day
22. Robbery Love - Dear Boy
23. Sometimes - Ariana Grande
24. The Sound - The 1975
25. Starboy - The Weeknd ft Daft Punk
26. This Girl - Kungs vs Cookin' On 3 Burners
27. This Is What You Came For - Calvin Harris ft Rihanna
28. Tilted - Christine And The Queens
29. Too Good - Drake ft Rihanna
30. UGH! - The 1975
31. Work - Rihanna ft Drake
32. You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) - Blaqk Audio

Great movies I saw for the first time this year:

1. The Lobster
2. Zoolander 2
3. Joy
4. Kill Your Darlings
5. True Romance
6. The Nice Guys
7. Funny Face
8. The Princess And The Frog

Bands I saw live this year:

1. The 1975, 5 times including their Live Lounge Symphony show and three dates on their arena tour
2. As It Is
3. The Smyths (The Smiths tribute band)

Cool things I did this year:

1. Got promoted at work and made a set of great friends
2. Started a pub quiz team with my work friends and won a few times
3. Discovered a new band to obsess over in The 1975, went off on an arena tour by myself
4. Earned a bronze badge for 2 years volunteering with Shelter
5. Completed the 2016 Reading Challenge I set myself in January

Favourite books I read this year:

1. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
2. Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis
3. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
4. Interview With The Vampire - Anne Rice
5. Valley Of The Dolls - Jacqueline Susann
6. Poe's Helen - Caroline Ticknor

The 5 songs I listened to most this year according to last.fm...

1. Love Me - The 1975
2. Menswear - The 1975
3. The Sound - The 1975
4. One Dance - Drake ft Wizkid and Kyla
5. Robbers - The 1975

...and according to Spotify:

1. One Dance - Drake ft Wizkid and Kyla
2. The Sound - The 1975
3. Desire - Years & Years ft Tove Lo
4. Love Yourself - Justin Bieber
5. Pillowtalk - ZAYN

Favourite purchases and acquisitions of the year:

1. Matte nail polish
2. Matryoshka dolls from Prague
3. iPhone
4. I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it by The 1975
5. Glittering statue of Jesus
6. Pink fairy lights
7. Black crochet/lace dress
8. Platform soled shoes
9. Nude nail polish
10. Shiny silver backpack
11. Rose gold The 1975 rectangle necklace
12. Bullet journal
13. Masses of second hand vinyl and books
14. Super high waisted skinny jeans
15. Sheet music from the BBC Philharmonic's performance with The 1975

New Year's Resolutions:

1. Don't worry or stress about work, accept I can only accomplish so much in one day and that there's no point getting annoyed at the mistakes made by other people because they're probably just doing what they think is right
2. Make sure I stay in touch with my Shelter family who are moving on to other things
3. Take some selfies, use Snapchat filters, have a picture of myself I like enough to use on my social media profiles
4. Keep up quizzing with my work friends and go on nights out with them every now and again
5. Make a friend who loves The 1975 as much as I do so I have someone to talk with about them and someone to go to future tours with

Autumn wishlist 2016

A few of the things I've been coveting lately:

Parts Of A Flower EP - Dear Boy

Dear Boy are one of my favourite bands and they released their second EP, 'Parts Of A Flower', a couple of months ago. I immediately bought the 4 songs on iTunes but I prefer to have my favourite music in its physical format with the artwork and everything to hold but sadly they don't ship to the UK anymore. If you're lucky enough to live somewhere that they will ship to you can buy a copy from the band's Big Cartel store, otherwise I recommend checking it out online.





Transparent jacket

 I spotted this jacket while scrolling through Tumblr and I've had the link to the store bookmarked for a little while. This jacket is so tacky and ugly but so shiny and colourful and I'm so on the fence about whether or not to order one. There are a few things putting me off, like the fact there's no hood, I'm not even sure if it's waterproof, and I don't know whether it'll arrive looking like the photo or if they'll send a cheap knock-off version.
If you're willing to test it out for me, buy it here.





Flatform plimsolls

I used to have a pair of shoes like this a few years ago and I wore them until they fell to pieces. These days I live either in regular plimsolls or ridiculous platforms and these are the perfect middle ground. I haven't been able to find any on eBay which is where I usually do my shoe shopping but when I was looking for a photo to use here I found that New Look are selling the ones to the left so I'll be putting in an order very soon.






'The Kiss' by Gustav Klimt postcard

I'd like a copy of this painting to put up on my desk at work, not just because it's a gorgeous painting but also for the memory attached to it. "Which artist created The Kiss?" was a question at one of the pub quizzes my work team went to and we had to fight for the point when the quizmaster stated it was Rodin. I said afterwards that I'd get us all Klimt pictures for our desks and I haven't got them yet so I'll have to get on that soon. I'd also like some Warhol pictures and maybe a copy of Starry Night too.



Vertical striped tights

I did have a pair of these from H&M which were my favourite tights but the ladders in them got so big that I had to say goodbye this morning. As of now I'm on the hunt for a new pair of vertical striped tights but the shops don't seem to have patterned tights as much these days so I reckon I'll be heading off to eBay. The pair in the picture are by Pamela Mann but I won't be paying £9 for a pair!

The last movie I saw... 
Bend It Like Beckham, dir Gurinder Chadha

This film was on TV recently when I got home from work and I ended up resurrecting my old bedroom television set to tune in. I've seen this movie before but it was a long time ago and I couldn't really remember what happened; in my memory the two leading ladies ended up as a couple so I was a little disappointed when I watched it back.
Bend It Like Beckham tells the story of Jess, an Asian teenager living in London who dreams of being a football star rather than aspiring to the marriage-and-kids lifestyle that her family expects. She joins a women's team with new BFF Jules (Keira Knightley in one of the roles that made her famous), coached by love interest Joe and has to balance this new double life to hilarious effect. As a culture-clash comedy this film is great; as a rom-com not so much - there's something about Joe that I don't trust at all, I thought he was a bit of a creep and I would much rather have had Jess and Jules end up together. The film also stands up as an early-00s nostalgia piece which pop culture will no doubt be looking back to in the coming years, I know it made me want to go back and watch some of the other movies I liked back then.

The last book I read... 
High Fidelity - Nick Hornby

I picked this book up in the charity shop a while ago, not sure what to expect. I saw the movie and it was a bit of a let-down, but I had hopes that a book about records and pop culture and cynicism would live up to what I'd wanted in the film. It all started out well, I thought the prologue was very funny, but the further I got into the book the more bored I was.
The protagonist Rob is a middle-aged record-shop owner who has just broken up with his girlfriend Laura and spends most of the book moping about how terrible he is with women despite believing he isn't a below-average person. He complains about how pop music has ruined his life and how his parents live and how teenage romance worked and how his colleagues behave; there is so much complaining.
Hornby writes about women in a way that only men do: as if we are some separate species that men cannot possibly begin to understand and who are governed by some sort of drive that men apparently do not possess. After reading this book I've begun to notice the ways that men write about women in other books (I'm reading Thomas Hardy right now and it's equally excruciating) and I get the impression that it's going to make reading any sort of romance much less enjoyable for me from now on, so thanks Nick Hornby. I do intend to read some more of his work but I'm not so hopeful - this book is going back to charity.

On my turntable... 
Grease - The Original Soundtrack From The Motion Picture

As a child aged 9 or 10 I was obsessed with Grease. I don't remember how or why I saw the movie for the first time but one of the first things I did was get my mum to dig out her vinyl copy of the soundtrack and record it onto cassette for me to listen to. All these years later the songs still make it onto my playlist and I'll still watch the movie whenever it's on TV.
The soundtrack is spread across 2 discs; the first has all the big numbers (Grease, Summer Nights, You're The One That I Want etc) and the second is mostly full of the rock'n'roll songs from the high school dance and the jukebox alongside some of the songs from the end of the film. It's hard to pick highlights from a soundtrack that the world knows and loves so well (it's the 2nd best-selling album of all time) but I always loved Rizzo's numbers as a kid - Look At Me I'm Sandra Dee and There Are Worse Things I Could Do - and the ones I listen to most now are Freddy My Love and the Sha-Na-Na dance numbers.

My Netflix queue... 
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Orange Is The New Black, Bad Education

 

I don't get to watch a lot of Netflix since my family's subscription is for one screen only and that's the TV in the living room where my parents usually are. When they're out these are the three shows I'm watching.

I started watching Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt last year as we got our subscription not long after it was released. I loved the first season's brightness and frame of reference but I haven't gotten into the second season so much, maybe because I haven't been able to binge watch it the same way.

I'm only on the first season of Orange Is The New Black but it's been on my watchlist more or less since it started. I get why it's such a cultural phenomenon, I love it so far and I just wish I had enough time to sit down and watch a whole lot more of it.

Finally I watched Bad Education on iPlayer when it was originally released on BBC3 and thought it was excellent so I've been playing it in the background while I scroll through the Internet since it doesn't take up a lot of my attention. It's still as funny as I remember.

My guilty pleasure... 
Spice Girls

I got home from work the other day just in time to see a little documentary about the career of the Spice Girls who were probably the first pop group I ever really loved. As a little girl their single Viva Forever was the first CD I ever bought and I played it on my parents' hi-fi so much that they bought me a boombox for Christmas. I also had a VHS of their music videos, a doll of Scary Spice and who knows what else. After watching that documentary I went straight to YouTube and spent the rest of the evening reviewing all their music videos which led to me buying both of their original albums last night... They are truly iconic in terms of music, fashion and of course Girl Power and I fully intend to channel their spirit from now on.

On my nails... 

This week I'm trying out nude nail polish for the first time with sparkly turquoise tips. They're a little clumsy looking but I'm hoping I can perfect the technique, ideally I'd like the colours to blend into one another but I'm not sure that's possible when painting one's own nails.
The nude polish in question is Rainy Day by Lottie London which I got with a recent Pink Parcel. I usually go for very bright or dark shades so I've never had any desire for a neutral colour like this but I love it now that I've tried it.
The turquoise shade is a Miss Sporty polish called Hypnotic Turquoise which I've had for around a decade and which I've worn regularly over the years, I'm surprised that it's still in use. The glitter is an NYC topcoat which is called Starry Silver Glitter on my bottle but I believe they've changed the name since then. It's made up mostly of tiny flecks of silver glitter with bigger pieces of blue and silver to look like a starry sky and it tied the two base polishes together.


Tech... 
Two months ago I finally upgraded to an iPhone from the basic smartphone I've been using for the last couple of years and I adore it. I have a gold SE which is a smaller phone (I'm not a fan of the very-thin, huge screen phones that a lot of people are using at the moment) with all the power of the iPhone 6 inside. Here are some of my favourite apps and features at the moment:

Cymbal - An app which looks a lot like Instagram but allows you to share your 'song of the moment' rather than post images. You can post songs from Spotify or Soundcloud and listen to snippets from the people you follow. My current Cymbal is Escape Route by Paramore which makes me feel like I'm going on an adventure every time I listen to it. Follow me @Rachii.

iBooks - One of the standard apps that comes with the iPhone is proving to be a good friend to me during lonely lunch breaks and time spent waiting for the bus to pick me up from work. I'm currently working my way through Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy which I was a third of the way through reading between calls when I got taken off inbound duty at work.

iTunes U - i.e. iTunes University, which is the Apple learning hub. Here you can download courses on pretty much any subject and work through them as if you were studying at school. Right now I'm working through a course on The British Invasion in the 1960s as I'm going through a Swinging London phase. It comes from the Ohio State University so it's fascinating seeing UK history through American eyes.

Podcasts - Another of the standard apps. Before I found a job I kept up to date with half a dozen podcasts that I've since fallen behind on but now I have no excuse. I started by going straight to the iTunes chart and trying out the #1 podcast which is My Dad Wrote A Porno and it's been one of the best decisions I've made all year. The show is basically a guy and his two friends reading and commenting on a terribly-written erotic novel that his father has published and it is hilarious, I would absolutely recommend it above everything else right now.

Priority - I decided to take out my phone contract with O2 mainly because of the Priority benefits so this app is a must-have. It offers discounts and freebies in various shops and restaurants, plus free movies and benefits at O2 music venues. I used the app the other day to order Taking Back Sunday tickets while on the bus to work; the future is amazing.

TripAdvisor - I've browsed TripAdvisor to get suggestions for restaurants and things to do on holiday for ages but since getting the app I've been using it more and more. It's an easy way to look at reviews and menus for nearby eating places, find out what the must-sees are in places I'm visiting, and even book hotels which I did for the first time the other day. They send a whole lot of emails with recommendations which is both helpful and a little annoying, plus to rate a place you have to write a review which is often too much effort for me, but I like the idea all the same.

1010! - This is a puzzle game app that I play a lot while I'm watching shows or listening to podcasts, replacing 2048 as my distraction of choice. The game is very much like Tetris although you drag and drop the shapes onto a 10x10 grid rather than fit them into lines from bottom to top. The only annoying thing about it, like most apps, is the ads which you have to watch for war or 3-in-a-row games every time the game beats you.

Finally, a random photo from my aesthetic blog... 

Gorgeous bath bombs at home in a Lush store.

R x

The last book I read...

Interview With The Vampire - Anne Rice

I've wanted to read this book since I was a teenage goth who liked vampires because I liked My Chemical Romance and the opportunity presented itself when I was in a bookshop in Preston stocked with complimentary literature on its last stop before the recycling centre. Never one to turn down a free book, I scooped it up and stuffed it into my backpack which was already full to bursting with tour souvenirs, where it began the next leg of a 40 year journey (the edition I have was printed in 1977, not long after the story was first published).

I saw the movie version of the book a few years ago but couldn't remember too much of the plot; I knew that Christian Slater of Heathers fame conducted the interview, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise played the two main vampires and Kirsten Dunst was an adorable vampire infant, but aside from that I had little recollection. The story is that of Louis, who, over the course of an evening, recalls how he came to be immortal and recounts the major events in his long life. The book is broken up into four parts which relate to the four settings for the novel: firstly in New Orleans where Louis spends the first part of his life, meeting the vampire Lestat and procuring the child Claudia, then moves on to adventures in Eastern Europe and Paris before arriving at the present day.

This is the first of Anne Rice's books that I've properly read, discounting The Taking Of Sleeping Beauty which is an erotic novel she wrote under a psuedonym and which I've never managed to finish. I really liked her descriptive style, particularly in explaining the splendour of the town house the vampires inhabit in New Orleans and the articles Claudia surrounds herself with. It's not an action-packed story of gore like some vampire stories, although there are some gruesome scenes, and I think it's my second favourite vampire story after The Lost Boys. The ending has made me eager to seek out a copy of the sequel which tells Lestat's story and has the added excitement of an 80s rock'n'roll excess setting. Like Less Than Zero, the last book I wrote about, this is another book I saw the movie of first and now need to go back and rewatch.

The last movie I saw...

Behind The Candelabra - dir. Steven Soderbergh

Before seeing this movie I had very little knowledge of Liberace; I knew that he was a cultural icon, a pianist, a homosexual, but not much else. Behind The Candelabra tells the story of the last decade or so of his life through the eyes of Scott Thorson, played by Matt Damon, who became his companion during that period. Their life together seems almost too bizarre to be true - they're lovers but Liberace (Michael Douglas) wants to adopt the orphaned Scott as his son, then he pays for Scott to have plastic surgery in order for him to look like the young Liberace... it's all very weird but oddly compelling. Of course, like in all glittering celebrity biopics there is a sharp turn for the worse, in this case when the star shows signs of ditching his protégé for a younger model, and the movie kind of lost my interest at that halfway point, not picking up again until the ending. My favourite things about this movie were the performance by Rob Lowe as the creepy Hollywood plastic surgeon and the gorgeous costumes and set pieces, particularly in the stage scenes and in Liberace and Thorson's home. The whole place sparkles with so much gold and silver and gleaming white, a look that Liberace refers to as "palatial kitsch" which has inspired me to let more tacky gold and glitter into my life.

On my turntable...

Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Welcome To The Pleasuredome

I found this 1984 double-vinyl album in my Dad's collection which surprised me as dance music isn't really his scene, but I'm so glad he bought it because I'm obsessed with it. Hits 'Relax' and 'Two Tribes' have been on my playlist for a couple of years now and I was familiar with the band's notoriety for flirting with sex, homosexuality and violence, but until I heard this album I never realised how important they really were.

Welcome To The Pleasuredome comprises four sides of vinyl which each have a different feel to them - side one is more or less one long side of dancefloor music which sounds like the wildest orgy since the Roman era; side two has the aforementioned hits; side three is more nostalgic with excellent covers of 'Born To Run' and 'Do You Know The Way To San Jose?' and the final side has the huge ballad 'The Power Of Love'.

Listening to this album is like taking the most exciting journey through a hedonistic 80s paradise and the artwork fits perfectly. On the outside are the Picasso-esque portraits of the band and their vibe but the slipcases for the records are my favourite part, combining little logos of hearts and crosses and sperm and bullets with quotes and complaints and a reading list and a merchandise catalogue featuring a jumper I'm coveting despite it being 32 years old. Welcome To The Pleasuredome is probably my favourite old album that I've discovered this year and if you don't have a record player you should definitely head to Spotify and listen to the deluxe version in all its excessive glory.

On my nails...

OPI - Kermit Me To Speak

I haven't taken a photo of my own nails this week because they're not especially exciting, but I'm using this fancy nail polish for the first time today. This shade came to me for free via Pink Parcel and is from the OPI Muppets Most Wanted collection which came out with the movie in 2014. Despite being named after Kermit the Frog it's not green which seems a little strange to me; I'm not sure where the name came from at all.

It's quite hard to work out from the bottle what colour the polish was going to be but on my fingertips it's a sparkling pinkish-lilac colour in some lights and golden in others. It's a pretty colour but not as striking as my usual black or bright coloured looks and I doubt I'll be using it a lot. I can't complain about a freebie though, especially one that's worth as much as OPI polishes are.

My playlist... 

Now that it's summertime I've added some more retro 60s sounds into my playlist alongside new favourites. Highlights:

1. Are "Friends" Electric? by Tubeway Army which I've recently become obsessed with

2. Christian D'Or by Adam & The Ants which is my other obsession song right now, there's something about these post-punk boys with English accents that's doing it for me recently...

4, 22, 30, 36. Songs by The 1975 that fit into the whole 'summer of love' theme 

6. I Wanna Be Yours by Arctic Monkeys, current favourite by them

8, 19, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 33. 60s classics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 25, 31, 35. 50s and 60s teen idol hits

21. Blue Moon Motel by Nicole Dollanganger because even though she was on the last playlist I'm still in love with this song

34. Milord by Édith Piaf who was on my turntable last week

A random image from my aesthetic blog on Tumblr...

Ladies restroom at the 2016 Met Gala, themed "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology". Part of a gorgeous set of pictures of ladies in sparkling silver dresses in the bathrooms at the ball looking classy and trashy and a little bit 'palatial kitsch'!

R

Paris Summer: a shopping round-up

Over the past month I've found myself in the city a lot which means I've indulged in a lot of shopping recently. Here are some of the things I've treated myself to lately:

The above tops are all from Primark and cost me £2-£3 each in the sale section, which is hard to argue with. At this point I've more or less removed colour from my wardrobe altogether to project a faux-intellectual Parisian Wednesday Addams aesthetic with plenty of stripes and Peter Pan collars. They're all perfect for me to wear to work aside from the long sleeve adorned with little Eiffel Towers which will be my friend on colder days. 

These dresses both came from the H&M sales (grey dress £5, black dress £10). 

The grey one is thick and wintry and not seasonally appropriate at all but I'll keep it stored away until it gets cold again - or possibly not because when it gets sunny outside my office turns the AC on and freezes us! 

I passed the black lace dress by the first time I went into the store because the mid-section has no underlay and I didn't think the peek-a-boo would look good on me. However when I tried it on I decided to throw caution to the wind and take it home and I'm glad I did... now I just need to find an occasion to wear it to!

The black jacket is another piece from the H&M sale which I picked up for £10 (sharing a coat hanger with a Primark jersey which proves I have clothes that aren't black). It hangs open the way I wear my much-loved leather jacket but I can wear it inside the office, which has already been a blessing on the aforementioned AC days.

I've recently reverted back to jeans after a spell wearing jeggings; I've always found that the jeans which fit my thighs are too big in the waist so the stretchy elasticated waistband of jeggings seemed like the ideal fix. Then I tried on Primark's Super High Waist Skinnies and I haven't worn anything else for months. I bought a pair with ripped knees which I've been living in but I'm growing tired of the jokes about my clothes having holes in them so I just picked up a normal pair, which are down from £10 to £8 at the moment for a little added bonus.

I bought a pair of round sunglasses in H&M a few years ago and they fast became my favourite shape so since Primark currently have them on sale for £1 I grabbed a spare pair. 

New in my nail polish box are two Barry M shades: Black Grape which is a dark blue Gelly polish and Crush which is a matte red. I really wanted a deep red colour and the photos of Crush look darker than it does in the bottle so hopefully it won't disappoint - plus it's matte which means it dries really quickly so there's a minimal window for me to smudge them. I've yet to try the Gelly polishes but I wear dark blue quite a lot so I'm looking forward to testing it soon. 

The third bottle in the photo is a True Brit shade called It's A Monthly Thing, which came in this month's Pink Parcel and was part of the reason why I reactivated by subscription. It's a super pale grey colour which looks really sophisticated and which I plan to use instead of white for a while.

I don't blog about it much but I have a little bit of an obsession with cute stationery. I have a pile of notebooks waiting to be used, a collection of different journals, a fascination with Paperchase and a fineliner selection spanning the whole rainbow. I picked up this huge set of fineliners in The Works for £6, mostly because it has such a great selection of pinks, including a peach shade which means I don't have to use brown and orange to colour skin when I'm doodling anymore. 

The glitter gel pens were £2 and they make me so nostalgic for a childhood where gel pens were a must-have item. I take them to work where I scrawl important Post-Its in sparkling cursive, the only downside is now all my colleagues want to use them too! Next up on the list: scented gel pens...

I usually pick up a magazine every time I go somewhere; as a kid I read Girl Talk and Top Of The Pops, then Kerrang! through my teenage years, but now I mostly go for fashion magazines - both the mainstream and alternative kind. I really like NME since they relaunched it as a free publication but sadly I live an hour away from the nearest stockist so I can only get it when I'm in HMV which means I miss out on most issues. 

I like Vanity Fair for the articles, they print content about old Hollywood and 20th century icons as well as current stars like Amy Schumer and it makes for great company on long journeys. I bought Pop because I missed the bus home one day and had some time to kill; I still haven't finished reading it because it's a few inches thick. I've been chasing the Fame Issue of Wonderland for months since it has great photos of Matty Healy in its pages, so I finally got that today and I'm looking forward to flicking through it because Wonderland is always great. 

Finally I ordered tmrw magazine online because their main feature is on The 1975 (Matty again...) and it has a homemade feel that I really like. I haven't read the cover feature yet but they've also published pieces on emo culture and the vinyl resurgence which sadly I found to be quite poorly written. The photos, however, are gorgeous - plus they sent me a couple of prints of The 1975 to sweeten the deal. 

Lastly, books and music. I've picked up a lot of 2nd hand books and vinyl lately but I'm just going to concentrate on the things I've bought as new. I read Less Than Zero earlier this year and absolutely loved it, so I was glad to find another Bret Easton Ellis book, The Rules Of Attraction, on sale in HMV. 

I enjoyed both Zayn's Mind Of Mine and Drake's Views when I streamed them so I picked up both of those, as well as Communion by Years & Years, which I haven't listened to all the way through yet but have high hopes for. I pre-ordered The F Bomb by Sonic Boom Six years ago (or does it just seem that long?) when they announced it on PledgeMusic and it finally arrived this week - it's been a while since I've really listened to them so hopefully the feminist-themed new material will kickstart the love I had for them in 2013. 

Finally, I used some of the vouchers I won from work to pick up the gorgeous vinyl edition of I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It by The 1975. It's my favourite album this year and I urge you to listen to it if you haven't yet, it combines so many genres and pretty sounds and feelings and I can't get enough. The HMV version of the album comes in a pastel pink slipcase which hides 2 discs of clear vinyl. 

The last book I read...
Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis

Less Than Zero is the debut novel by Bret Easton Ellis (who is perhaps best known for writing American Psycho) and I picked it up in a second hand shop years ago following an 80s movie phase where I ended up watching the superbly-soundtracked Robert Downey Jr film loosely based on the book.
The novel follows Clay, a college student who has come home to LA for Christmas and does nothing but get high, attend mind-numbing parties and listen in to the vapid conversations his Valley friends have. There is a loose plot concerning Clay and his former best friend Julian, but the book is more like a list of events detailing the lives of these teens who live a dream existence of wealth and celebrity and excess but are bored by it all.
The idea of a book without any storyline might sound like a waste of time but I loved it; the prose is immersive not only in the way it puts us in that world but in the way it feels like we're rolling around in the mind of the character along with the 'Disappear Here' billboards on the Californian highways and the Joan Jett lyrics from the café stereo.
I definitely plan to read more of Easton Ellis' books, which conveniently are often among those sold really cheap in Fopp/HMV.


The last movie I saw... 
Nowhere - dir. Gregg Araki

Nowhere is kind of like Less Than Zero in movie form - it follows bored LA teens whose only interests are sex, drugs, parties and gossip (in fact some consider it a direct rip-off). The trailer makes it look like an action-packed coming-of-age tale when in fact it's surreal, lurid, neurotic and overall bizarre. The cast of this movie includes 90s icons like Rachel True, Mena Suvari, Kathleen Robertson, Rose McGowan and Shannen Doherty, plus a whole host of other gorgeous kids with piercings and green hair and lipliner.
I first watched it a few years ago and didn't really get it but I'm glad I revisited it because I adored it the second time around. Again, I'm not sure if there's any plot to speak of but the visuals and the Valley dialogue and the casting and unexplainable scifi moments make this film so great that I'll probably end up watching it a few more times in the near future.


On my turntable...
The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses

I found this record amongst my dad's collection and saved it from storage with the intention of eventually listening to it, which I got round to doing at the weekend. I expected to find it monotonous but was pleasantly surprised and kind of didn't want it to end when the needle was getting closer to the centre.
 I was familiar with the band's legacy and their song Fools Gold (not included on this record) and song titles like I Wanna Be Adored and I Am The Resurrection. I Wanna Be Adored turned out to be one of my highlights, along with Waterfall which is one of those lovely dreamy songs that makes me want to lie in the grass and watch the clouds go by. Add that to the Pollock-esque artwork that looks great on display in my room and it's safe to say this is one album that won't be going back into storage.

Clothes

At the moment my uniform consists of ripped black skinny jeans, comfy band t-shirts, a choker, my leather jacket and platform shoes; I am a cliché.  At work I'm still all about Peter Pan collars and cute dresses with leggings which make me feel like the office princess.

My favourite recent purchase is probably this The 1975 t-shirt which I ordered from Amazon for about £5 because it turns out it's really easy to pick up cheap replicas of shirts Taylor Swift (left) has worn. It's light and sleeveless which makes it perfect for sunny days and also people talk to me about the band when I wear it - I got tricked into re-activating my HMV card the other day when the cashier told me they were giving away goodies...

Although I bought them in December to replace my much-loved creepers, I've recently discovered that there is no outfit that isn't improved by my platform shoes. They were really cheap (£7.99 on eBay and still available), add a few inches to my height, and generally make me feel like the boss in any situation. They probably don't count as workplace-appropriate shoes but they're comfy and weatherproof and go with all my outfits so I don't really care.




On my nails... 


This week I'm wearing one of my favourite looks, glitter tips. I've blogged about how much I love glitter before but I have to state once more how much it cheers me up to see it twinkling on my fingertips (and everywhere else that it lands once it starts to flake off). In this case I used w7 Green Glitter (my number one Christmas colour) on top of my all-time favourite, Barry M matte polish in Espresso, except on my thumbs which are painted in Stargazer's grey shade. They have a dark Halloween vibe which shouldn't be seasonally appropriate but it also snowed last week so who cares? I've been extra careful all week in an attempt to make this look last as long as possible but I know it's only a matter of time before the sparkle will be all gone, so I'm enjoying the compliments and glitter while it lasts.

My playlist... 

The Spotify playlist above is a combination of the music I've recently been listening to on the bus, in the shower and in my bedroom. Highlights:

2, 5, 9, 13, 21, 24, 30, 33, 38: all of my current favourite songs by my current favourite band, The 1975 (narrowed down from a much bigger playlist)

6, 10, 36: adorable love songs by Nicole Dollanganger from her Ode To Dawn Wiener: Embarrassing Love Songs EP

1, 11, 12, 14, 17, 19, 29: current pop songs by Drake, Rihanna, Zayn, Years & Years, etc

23, 31: my two favourite songs by The Sundays

7, 22, 34, 37: selections from the 60s

4: Transgender Dysphoria Blues by Against Me!, which psyches me up for work in the morning but also makes me want to get off the bus and do something more adventurous

28: Animal Nitrate by Suede which gives me much the same feeling, but sexier

3, 26, 35: favourites from Frankie Goes To Hollywood's album Welcome To The Pleasuredome

15, 16: aspirational bad bitch anthems

20: Local Roses, the newest song by Dear Boy.

TV shows I'm currently watching... 

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Love, Angie Tribeca (more on those another time)

A random image from my aesthetic blog on Tumblr...

Debbie Harry in Hairspray; an 80s recreation of the 60s and a movie I need to see.

(This is my first blog of 2016 - pathetic!)

R