Septeaster

I promise this blog isn't dead and I am working on something to bring it back to life next year but in the meantime here are the nails I just did and haven't tidied up yet - don't they look like little Easter eggs?

(Colours: Rimmel matte in You're Mine (peach) and Cheeky Chap (blue), Primark matte in Blush (pink), Ciate Purple Sherbet, Barry M Mint Green)

November / December update

The last movie I watched...
The Princess Switch (Netflix)

As much as I love my parents, one of my favourite times of the season is when they disappear off on holiday for a few days and leave me home alone to indulge in one of my guilty pleasures: cheesy Netflix teen rom-coms.  The Princess Switch actually ticks my brother's guilty pleasure box too, in that it doubles as a made-for-TV cheesy Christmas movie; hopefully he won't be disappointed that I watched it without him.  If you haven't seen the trailer for The Princess Switch, the premise is basically The Parent Trap, except instead of separated twin sisters, the protagonists (both played by Vanessa Hudgens, star of wholesome teen Disney movie High School Musical and less-than-wholesome teen exploitation movie Spring Breakers) are mere doppelgangers - one is a baker from Chicago, the other a Duchess days away from marrying a prince.  The set-up for the switch is quick and clumsy - baker Stacy's whole back-story is dropped on us in the first scene, nobody in the kingdom knows what the Duchess looks like because she's "camera-shy" - but the film still has its charm, containing all the sweetness of an old-fashioned Disney princess movie.  A lot of the story was predictable, but it took me a while to work out just how the romantic pairings were going to fall and how the fairytale ending would play out. 

On my record player...
The 1975 - Give Yourself A Try/Love It If We Made It (2018, Dirty Hit)

The 1975's third album, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, came out this week.  I haven't yet been able to decide whether I like it or not, although I suspect it'll grow on me, as my copies haven't arrived yet, but the special edition of their Q Magazine cover with a 7" of the first two songs they released from the album has arrived so that's currently on my timetable.  If you haven't heard them yet (where have you been?!), Give Yourself A Try is a noisy, fun powerpop song about Matty Healy's inner turmoil, and Love It If We Made It is a shouty protest song about the global turmoil surrounding him.  Basically, he's managed to cover every subject in the modern world on 2 sides of vinyl, which is pretty impressive.


My November 2018 playlist:

1. thank u, next - Ariana Grande
2. Corrine - Black Honey
3. World In My Eyes - Depeche Mode
4. Only Shallow - My Bloody Valentine
5. Here And Now - Ride
6. Palisade - Mineral
7. Your Silent Face - New Order
8. Herjazz - Huggy Bear
9. The Drowners - Suede
10. Brass In Pocket - Suede
11. Da Da Da - Elastica
12. Sincerity Is Scary - The 1975
13. Having A Blast - Green Day
14. The Ghost In You - The Psychedelic Furs
15. A Change Of Heart - The 1975
16. The Man Who Married A Robot / Love Theme - The 1975

This week in my journal:

My theme this week is sort of a 'teenagers gone wild' thing - there's some freakishly-dressed young people appearing on a 90s talk show, Yolandi Visser from Die Antwoord getting high outside in her pyjamas, and the goth girl skating in platform shoes (which I'm very envious of). 


I usually mention the last book I read on here too, but I've now spent about 4 months wading through The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh and still have 100 pages to go, so I'm not ready to talk about that yet.  However, instead I can offer...

The last book I listened to...
The Letters Of Sylvia Plath (BBC Radio 4 Book Of The Week, 2018)

I'm a huge fan of Sylvia Plath's letters, so I was delighted when Radio 4 did a second instalment of her words as Book Of The Week last week, this time focusing on the later period of her life when she had finished studying and met Ted Hughes (her student years and first breakdown were covered earlier in the year).  Her letters during this period are mostly upbeat and loving: she has a supportive husband, her poems are being accepted for publication and she becomes a mother.  Towards the end of the week, however, things take a dark turn when she uncovers Ted's adultery - the anguish in the letter that opens Friday's episode is gut-wrenching.  She simultaneously is lost and feels that she can't go on, and has days when she realises she must pick herself up and start a new life without him.  The last letter is from right before her suicide aged 30 and is heartbreaking.  I know I've blogged about this before, but I wish she'd carried on and was able to see how much of a hero she is to the women who followed her. 

October 2018 Update

The last book I read...


Coal Black Mornings - Brett Anderson

Over the summer I read John Harris' Britpop book 'The Last Party' and came away with an interest in Suede, whose story makes up part of that book.  At around the same time, I was scrolling through the Edinburgh Book Festival programme and noticed that their singer, Brett Anderson, was going to be appearing to discuss his memoir, Coal Black Mornings.  I had to renew my library card to borrow the book, which I devoured over a few days and adored.  The book covers the story of Brett's young life, from his beginnings in a little council flat with his eccentric parents, through his school and university years, ending with him living in London and finally signing a record deal with Suede after years of being ignored by the music world.  He describes the book as being about failure, rather than the classic celebrity success memoir that we're all used to, and it's full of little details which ground him as a regular person with an extraordinary job, rather than as the otherworldly indie rock icon he can appear as in the press.  I'm too young to remember a lot of what he talks about youth-wise, but I'm enchanted by his tales of time spent living in London in the late 80s and early 90s, especially the treatment of his relationship with Justine Frischmann.
After finishing the book I went to the Festival and saw him talk about it (in a room full of Suede/Britpop people of his generation, that is, twice my age) and had him sign a copy for me, which I'm still a little starstruck about two months later.  I've heard that he's planning to release the next instalment of his story in a year's time and am patiently waiting for it to arrive.

The last movie I watched...

The Lost Boys

When I was 18, I saw The Lost Boys for the first time and then proceeded to watch it every other day for the rest of the summer.  I knew every line, every song, every piece of trivia about the making of the movie.  I wrote about it in film class, pointed to it when asked what my favourite movie was and was basically obsessed by it for a while.  It's been a few years now since I last saw it so last weekend I decided to put the DVD on and find out whether it still resonated with me, and I was pleased to find that I still love it just as much as I ever did.  Having recently watched Stranger Things, I saw parallels between that squad of monster-hunting kids and the vampire-slaying team of Sam and the Frog Brothers who used to irritate me but who I now see as endearing.  I was always drawn to Kiefer Sutherland's David and his vampire gang so that very first shot of them walking around on the boardwalk carousel still makes me shiver.  I still remember what happens but there were little details that had faded from my memory which made it feel like I was seeing it for the second or third time again.  Aesthetically it's still on point; there's the black leather motorbike gang vibe of the vampires, Star's hippy-Stevie-Nicks thing, and I even appreciate and kind of want to emulate the trendy 80s looks that Sam wears.  If there's anyone out there who hasn't had the pleasure of watching The Lost Boys yet, please stop reading and go do that right now!

On my turntable...

Elastica - Elastica

I've listened to this album more than any other over the last few months.  Again, I became interested in Elastica after reading The Last Party (and, to an extent, Coal Black Mornings) and they quickly became my favourite band of the Britpop era.  Their songs are short, fast, sexy and witty, and it doesn't make sense to me that they aren't universally beloved by young women in the same way that Hole or Paramore are.  I'm fairly certain that Justine Frischmann is the coolest woman in the world and it's a shame that they split at the beginning of the millennium because I really want to be down the front at every one of their shows, singing every word back to her.  They reissued this, their fastest-selling, Mercury-nominated debut album, on vinyl last year and I snapped up a cut-price copy on eBay from someone who said there was a flaw in the packaging that I haven't been able to find, so now I have it on my turntable at home, in my cassette walkman at work and on my iPod for those places in between so that I never have to be without it.

My Autumn playlist:

1. Stay Together - Suede
2. TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME - The 1975
3. Elastica - Elastica
4. Suede - Suede
5. Filmstar - Suede
6. Love Interest - Dear Boy
7. Four Out Of Five - Arctic Monkeys
8. Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order
9. I Wanna Be Adored - The Stone Roses
10. Parklife - Blur

Currently watching...

The Good Place

I'm a big fan of Michael Schur's past shows (The Office, Parks & Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), so The Good Place has been on my radar since it started in 2016.  I'm almost at the end of the first of three seasons and find it very charming.  It follows Eleanor (Kristen Bell) who arrives in the Utopian 'The Good Place' after her death, despite not having earned her spot there while on Earth, and her struggle to become a good person so she can escape being committed to 'The Bad Place' where she belongs.  The show is filled with charming supporting characters, like Eleanor's supposed soulmate-cum-teacher Chidi and her philanthropic neighbour Tahani, but my favourite character is Janet, the humanoid designed to deliver goods and information to the residents of the Good Place who isn't quite perfect.  If you like your sitcoms to be a little whimsical and surreal, you should definitely give this a try.

From my journal...

These are the pictures I've used to illustrate my bullet journal this week.  The mood is a little romantic, a little retro, more Valentines than Halloween and a good excuse for me to test out some of the red and pink washi tape patterns I've been saving.  

September shopping - so far

Here's how my current obsessions are manifesting themselves:

My vibe at the moment is very 90s mixed with modern internet goth.  I've started browsing through Wish and adding things to my basket throughout the month and then clicking 'Purchase' on the last day, which means that I get little surprise parcels from myself at the end of the following month.  The set of pins in the picture to the right are a Wish purchase, and so is the crystal necklace.  I'm disappointed with the necklace - it has a chip where the silver coating has come off and the 'crystal' part has kind of melted into the silver next to it which shows that it's definitely just plastic, plus it's much more translucent than I expected it to be.  However, it still reflects the light and I'll still wear it regularly.  I'm much happier with the pin set, I was worried that they would be really poorly made and illegible but they look just like the photo.  My favourites are the ghost and the 'Ugh.' heart which reminded me of The 1975's song of the same name.  I'm going to put the banner with "Sure. Fine. Whatever." on something I wear at work to point to when I can't be bothered answering someone's silly question. 
I found the Empire Records patch at Pie In The Sky in Edinburgh which has a wide range of patches, pins, band t-shirts and other cool stuff.  A lot of it is really pricey (they had some great Jarvis Cocker pins which were £8.50; other pins and patches in there are up to £20 each) but this one was £2.99 and will fit right in on my denim jacket which I've been embellishing all summer.  I was surprised to find it there because Empire Records is a totally underrated movie. 
They're all sitting on a checked background courtesy of some 'cosy' leggings I bought in Primark.  Their approach this season is apparently 'all tartan everything' - I'm not a fan of patterned trousers so I avoided those and went for the leggings instead, which I can wear under a skirt or short dress to keep warm this winter.

As everyone who knows me knows, I can't resist an armful of books, and I picked these ones up on two trips to my hometown charity shops.  Sylvia Plath is one of my favourite people of the 20th century; I've read The Bell Jar multiple times, along with her Letters Home and some of her poems, but I've never come across a copy of her Journals until now.  As much as I recognise her poetic genius, it's her letters and journal entries that enthral me the most - I don't believe there has been anyone who has written about the day-to-day experience of being a young woman as well as Plath did. 
I picked up the Oasis book to fulfil the '2 for 99p' offer that allowed me to take home the vintage copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover.  I like Oasis but they aren't my favourite of the Britpop set (more on Britpop later); I get the feeling that the best book about them would be one that the Gallagher brothers took turns writing so that it had the maximum amount of petty sibling drama, but we'll see. 
Persepolis is different to my usual reading material in that it's a graphic novel but I've heard so many interesting things about it over the years that it feels like something I should get round to reading.  I'm also looking forward to devouring the Jim Morrison story in No One Here Gets Out Alive, which I've passed over so many times but finally decided to purchase.
Finally, I can't resist old Penguin copies of classic books, even if they're falling apart, which is why I came home with a 60s edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover.  I do already have a copy as part of a DH Lawrence compendium, but this paperback is going to be much easier to handle as long as I don't lose any pages!  I also picked up a 70s copy of Franny & Zooey in the hope that I enjoy it more than The Catcher In The Rye, which I thought was a little overrated.

Now on to my favourite band of the summer, Elastica.  Even though they were active from approx. 1993-2001, I've been obsessively devouring any Elastica material I can find over the last few months.  They are the most underrated and overlooked of the Britpop 'big five' despite being the coolest of the bunch - there weren't and still aren't enough bands with three cool girls up front.  I'm currently collecting their discography on vinyl so pictured are this month's acquisitions: the 7" of their single 'Connection' and a promotional soundsheet of 'Vaseline'.  I think the soundsheet is particularly cool - it's a US item similar to the flexidiscs that used to occasionally come free with magazines over here but pressed onto a sheet of acetate rather than being disc-shaped.  I've listened to the first Elastica album so many times this summer that I feel like I know every single second of it so it's cool to have found pressings of two of my favourite songs from it. 

To jump briefly back to clothes and from one set of iconic ladies to another, I picked up this blazer in Primark yesterday which, like most of the clothes in there at the moment, reminds me of the girls in 'Heathers'.  I took it into the dressing room expecting it to look terrible on me but instead I fell in love with it and will be wearing it to work all the time from now on.  I now have a conundrum though: do I go to work on October 31st dressed as Wednesday Addams or Veronica Sawyer??

Back to the music and the pile of CDs I've bought this month.  See what I mean when I said I had a 90s vibe going on at the moment? 
At the start of the summer I began reading the book 'The Last Party' by John Harris, which gives a history of the Britpop era and how it contributed to the election of Tony Blair.  The book covers Oasis, Blur, Suede and Elastica, which occasional mentions of Pulp, Menswear and a few other stars of the time.  I've been listening to Suede since I was about 6, when 'She's In Fashion' appeared amongst the boybands on a compilation I got free with a magazine.  Their self-titled debut album is what I've been listening to on the rare occasions that I'm not playing the Elastica album and this month I felt ready to graduate to their 1994 follow-up, Dog Man Star.  Unfortunately, the only song on it that really resonates with me is the beautiful 'The Wild Ones', so I probably won't spend much time with it before moving on to the next album in their discography.  (A Suede side-note that I have to mention - their singer Brett Anderson wrote the most wonderful coming-of-age memoir, Coal Black Mornings, this year and I got to meet him at the Edinburgh Book Festival last month. It was magical.) 
I'm almost ready to graduate to the 2nd Elastica album too, but not before listening to their 6 Track EP which came out just before.  They changed their line-up a lot between the two so I'm interested to see how the music sounds.  I have, however, listened to Weekend Swingers, which is a bootleg I picked up on eBay.  It includes a 1994 festival performance, 2 of their Peel Sessions and some other demos and live bits and pieces.  I was worried that the quality was going to be bad but thankfully the sound is really good and so is the live show that makes up the first half of the disc - I wish I could time travel to see them play!
It was while I was browsing the Elastica section of eBay that I came across the soundtrack to Gregg Araki's 'Nowhere', a film I've written about before on the blog that is one of my favourite obscure movies.  I had no idea that both Elastica and Suede had songs on the soundtrack and I ordered it straight away - I wish finding a DVD of the film was that easy. 
I've also finally managed to pick up the first two Oasis albums.  Even though I said they weren't my favourite of the Britpop bands, it's undeniable that they had some really good tunes, most of which are on these two CDs.  I picked up Pulp's 2001 album 'We Love Life' out of love for Jarvis Cocker, Mazzy Star's 'She Hangs Brightly' out of love for their song 'Fade Into You', Bis' 'Vs. The DIY Corps' EP out of love for Scottish indie and The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart's self-titled just because I've heard they're good.  Reviews to come someday when I've had time to listen to them!

A couple of magazines since I've been in Edinburgh: Bust is a feminist-leaning magazine that I found very charming and interesting when I first bought it, so I always have a look to see if there are any interesting features when I see a copy.  This month's cover star plays the lead in 'Crazy Rich Asians' which I'm planning on seeing soon, plus there are pieces on cults, Michelle Wolf and Tumblr culture which are all things I'm interested in.  

I also bought Dazed because M.I.A is on the cover.  I saw her documentary Matangi/Maya/M.I.A yesterday and found it incredible so now I'm on a mission to read everything I can about it. 

One final music item to finish off: I haven't talked about Depeche Mode in this post but I still love and adore them as much as I did at the start of the year.  I've collected most of their vinyl now so I don't spend as much time in the Depeche Mode part of eBay as I used to but I had a look the other day and caught a copy of Black Celebration on cassette about to end with 0 bids.  I put a bid in expecting someone else to be watching it, but nobody was and I won.  As luck would have it, the same seller had also just listed the Suede album which I also ended up winning.  I keep a cassette Walkman in my desk at work to listen to when I have nobody in the office to speak to - or when I need to drown out the people who are talking so I can concentrate - so both of these will be joining the collection in my drawer.  

Update piece: 3 June 2018

The last book I read: Crackpot by John Waters

I do a reading challenge every year and one of my 2018 categories is "a book written by someone you admire" so I chose to read the John Waters essay collection that I've had sitting on my shelf for a while, since I find his movies so entertaining.  It's definitely the book I've enjoyed most so far this year - Waters writes about niche obsessions like Baltimore TV shows of the 60s, tabloid journalism, Z-list actresses and criminals hilariously and even though I tried to limit myself to one essay per day I found it hard to put the book down.  His references are so obscure that for all I know he could have invented William Castle and Pia Zadora (I had to do a bit of Googling) but it wouldn't have mattered if the whole thing was a work of complete fiction.  Immediately after finishing I went online and ordered a copy of his first book, 'Shock Value', and headed to YouTube to watch some clips of him being interviewed on late-night talk shows; I admire him far more now than I did when I picked the book up.

Choice quote (from 'Hatchet Piece: 101 Things I Hate): "I've had it with being nice, understanding, fair and hopeful.  I feel like being negative all day.  The chip on my shoulder could sink the QE2.  I've got an attitude problem and nobody better get in my way."

The last movie I watched: West Side Story (1961)

This one has been a long time coming.  I saw parts of West Side Story in high school music classes, I've seen them pay homage to it on Glee and the soundtrack has been welcome on my turntable, but I'd never actually seen West Side Story until last month.  As I already knew the story and the songs, it didn't feel like I was sitting down to watch something new but it was interesting to finally see the visuals that go with the iconic musical numbers and the faces behind the voices (or at least, the faces miming those voices).  I was a little disappointed to see how white the Puerto Rican characters were, having gotten used to seeing Latinx actors on Jane The Virgin and Orange Is The New Black, but now I'm itching to see a remake that gives those actors a chance to inhabit the roles of Maria and Bernardo and the other Sharks.  I see that Spielberg has put out a casting call and I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic.

On my hi-fi: Depeche Mode - Songs of Faith and Devotion

The album may be the same age as me but it's my favourite of 2018; there's not a single song on it that I don't adore.  I was listening to some of my favourite Depeche Mode singles last night and after putting 'I Feel You' onto the turntable I ended up getting this CD out and playing the full album.  So right now I have I Feel You on the turntable, Songs Of Faith And Devotion in the CD player, and an old mixtape of my dad's of his favourite songs from 1972-73 in the tape-deck - that's a bit early for Depeche Mode and is instead made up of a lot of glam rock and the like: Children Of The Revolution, Ballroom Blitz, Walk On The Wild Side... 

My current playlist:

1. Give Yourself A Try - The 1975

2. Route 66 - Depeche Mode

3. Young & Dumb - Cigarettes After Sex

4. The Dream Synopsis - The Last Shadow Puppets

5. Tammy Faye - Nicole Dollanganger

6. Cherry - Lana Del Rey

7. Black Celebration - Depeche Mode

8. Rose-Colored Boy - Paramore

9. Nothing - Depeche Mode

10. Space & Time - Wolf Alice

The TV shows I'm watching: Orange Is The New Black / My So-Called Life

I finally finished (or at least caught up with) Orange Is The New Black last night, after a couple of years of watching episodes whenever I can get an hour alone with Netflix.  I'm glad the next season is due out this month because I need to know what happens next, especially with Flaca and Maritza!

I've been making my way through My So-Called Life as well, even though it was on TV 20 years ago.  It's regarded as a classic that was cancelled too soon, and even though I'm enjoying it I don't think it lives up to the hype as much as, say, Freaks & Geeks.  I relate to Angela (played by Claire Danes) and I'm especially jealous of her 90s flannel outfits but I can't deal with her parents and how much of an ~after-school teen issues~ vibe it has sometimes.

My journal theme this week: pretty pastels

I'm using this adorable flower collage as my inspiration this coming week.  I've stuck it in my bullet journal, where it compliments the pastel highlighter pens I bought, and I've painted my nails in white, lilac and mint with pink and blue holographic sparkle.  The pale colours and the super-organised pattern feel so peaceful and I'm hoping I can draw on that if I have a difficult day at the office.

Tell me in the comments what things you're into at the moment!

R x