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