LOL du jour

A couple of my housemates and I had Kelis - Milkshake in our head, and this is the first thing that came to mind. It's only funny 'cause that's what I like to do when I sing songs. 

Damien Hirst has spots

I just got an e-mail from s[edition] about Damien Hirst' forthcoming exhibition at the Tate Modern in London, and on his current exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery, on for another three weeks. I was invited (by my aunt who has the most incredibly large amount of connections ever, that would take a normal person, like, 100 years to meet) to the private opening a few weeks back, but i wasn't able to go for a reason I can't remember. Here's the info if anyone is interested.

Damien Hirt's lastest exhibition, The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011, is currently being held at all 11 Gagosian Galleries across the world - in New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Rome, Athens, Geneva, and Hong Kong.
Uniquely conceived as a single exhibition, it includes more than 300 paintings, from the first spot on board that Hirst created in 1986 to the most recent comprises 25,781 spots that are each 1mm in diameter. Hirst teasingly offered a personally signed spot print to anyone prepared to fly to every location.

Gagosian Gallery
Until 18th February

Damien Hirst has spots

Hirst at the Tate Modern, London
4 April - 9 September 2012


In April, Tate Modern will present the first substantial survey of Damien Hirst's work ever held in the UK.
Sponsored by the Qatar Museums Authority, the exhibition brings together over 70 of the artist's most seminal works including iconic sculptures from the early 1990's, such as The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living in which he suspended a shark in formaldehyde and Mother and Child Divided, a four-part sculpture of a bisected cow and calf.

Also on show will be important vitrines such as A Thousand Years (1990), in which the cycle of life is represented by a cow's head, flies and insect-o-cutor. Alongside these sculptures will be cabinets displaying rows of pills, instruments and medical packaging, as well as paintings made throughout Hirst's career from his spot, spin, butterfly and fly series. In addition, two major installations will be on view: In and Out of Love (1991), not shown in its entirety since its creation, and Pharmacy (1992).

I will definitely be making my way to the Tate Modern over summer. Unlike most people (probabaly the people who don't really get him) I really do like Damien Hirst's work. It may not be what a lot of people think is 'ART,' but then again what is? If it's not art, it's still really clever, so where's the problem?


Anyone else thinking of going? x

Google Snowflake

LOL of the day:

This is Google's homepage today - because apparently, 125 years ago records the date of the fall of the world's largest snowflake. 38cm in diameter, found in 1887, 125 years ago today, in Montana in the US. That's the kinda stuff that should be on QI - what worries me, though, is why anyone would measure a snowflake, and, more importantly, how it didn't melt by the time they put their wellies on, found their tool box, picked up their ruler and ran out the house. Anyway, thanks Google :)

Big Brother Results

If you know me well you will know that Big Brother (of the celebrity or of the 'average person' type) is a total guilty pleasure of mine. It's so addictive and, no matter what you say, it's incredibly interesting. I wasn't in last night to see the final, so I have just watched it on Youtube (that's right, Youtube has tv shows now), and I'm pretty satisfied with the results.

This series of CBB was awesome - although if I have to EVER see those twins' faces every again, anywhere, I might flip. What cows! English people are just not ready for such conceited behaviour on a programme which is essentially a popularity contest, amongst other things. I mean, one of the twins had a massive flip out at Denise because Denise pulled down her 'pants' - that's american for trousers. And then Nicola - I don't get how Natalie could ever like her! Natalie is so genuine and Nicola, like the twins, is a conceited, selfish, whiney cow.

Fratalie

On a happier note - they played Lana Del Rey's song 'Born to die' about a quarter of the way in, which made me feel good :)

So, the twins came in 5th place - I'm incredibly pleased, although I'm not sure what they were doing in the finale anyway. How can they be so smug when everyone boos them every week? But then again, why did they always manage to stay in every week - sometimes I think there is something wrong with the British public (Says me who never picked up the phone). When they came out the house, they played Christina Aguilera's Super Bitch, and no-one cheered at all - i'm so pleased. Do we think they got the message yet though? "We just know we're very popular" answers that. "We wanna inspire other young women to be just like we are" - oh. lord. PLEASE, any mothers potentially reading this, don't let this happen! Apparently while watching their Best Bits they were saying how brilliant they were. Please get out of our country, thank you.

Then Resevoir Dogs star, Michael gets voted off and looks relieved to be leaving, not realizing, obviously, that had he come 3rd place, rather than 4th, he would have only had to have waited, what, 20 minutes or so! He clearly was disappointed he didn't win - whatever though, he's gone. To call Denise 'emotionally disturbed' ain't so cool. And i'm pretty happy with any of the remaining 3 winning - Although I would have liked Frankie to be the winner really.

Gareth came next. I have to say, as much as I thought he deserved to win cos he was always so genuine, I dont think he offered a whole lot. His naivety when he was told he was big in japan and had to dress up as a sushi hand-roll and dance around was  f a n t a s t i c  though!

Then came the results and I was a tiny weeny bit gutted little Frankie didn't win - but Denise still deserved it for beating off those little bitches (i.e. Nicola and the twins) and for proving the old ladies can do it. Not that 53 is particularly old. Good on her!

Loved a bit of Frankie strutting his stuff down the stairs. He was, i think, the best housemate. He was never judgmental, always so laid-back, he sided with the person who was loosing the fight instead of being a sheep and, lets face it, he's damn adorable. About the whole getting-kicked-off-the-x-factor: boys will be boys - what he did wasn't clever but George Michael, Pete Doherty and so many other artists did (and keep doing) a lot worse and they are still successful. So here's a suggestion, let's get over it? The bromance between him and Kirk is too cute as well - I can feel the love through the TV screen, genuinely.

Frankirk

Then we get to Denise, the winner. Who had no idea when to walk up the stairs, and when she finally got there she flashed the audience - fantastic.

All in all, a very satisfying series from BB productions - It's getting me all excited for summer now!

Don't tell anyone, but I'm definitely auditioning for next summer's show.

Happy Australia Day

G'day mate and a HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY to all you lot down under!

I would love, one day, to roam your lands and visit the aussies that I have encountered during my 22 years of life. I realise it has already been Australia day for a good few hours for you lot out there, but I live in the past, in a small little country called England - pardon the delay, and enjoy your day!

Happy 3 Month Anniversary to Me!

So I've officially been blogging for my own pleasure and as a distraction from uni work for the last 3 months! Help me blow out the candles! (I wish I got a real cake)

Bella Italia, mi manchi!

I am really beginning to miss Italy at the moment. I think I totally took advantage of my year abroad while I was out there: if I had known that the sun pretty much only exists in Italy, realized at the time that italians really do make quite nice ice cream, and stopped constantly buying myself plane tickets home when I got bored of my own company, then the whole thing would have bit a lot more fun. Saying that, it was pretty awesome, and I did do a fair amount of traveling while I was there - just not enough in comparison to the amount I could have done. And who can blame me for missing one of the most exotic countries within Europe when Leeds currently feels like a ghost town, with student hibernating in their beds, awaiting dreaded exams and hiding from the rain and the bitter cold winds? I mean, what's not to miss?

Guess who's back? Back again

Oh my gosh, I've been so useless at updating my blog recently. Work and laziness clearly took over my life, and regaining it has been quite the challenge. But I'm back! and I've never been happier to have my blog to use as procrastination for when I am meant to be reading 6 italian crime novels. I'll check in again soon!

Google HQ, London

Today started off as pretty much your average day: got up, had a shower and thought about doing some revision but decided it could wait another day. We had been invited (/my mother rudely invited the whole family) to have sushi at the Google office in Victoria, with our neighbour who works there.

We arrived and I was amazed by the pure amount of colour and luxury in just the offices. It looks like one of the most interesting and fun places to work - brightly coloured couches spread out everywhere, coffee stops scattered around, clusters of stripey chairs decorated with pretty cushions, beach-house and Dice-shaped conference rooms, and a 'tech stop' so if anything technology-related goes wrong it can be fixed, and if no one is there to help you, it is linked up by a webcam to the technicians in the opposite building on the other side of the road...a m a z i n g ! It really makes me want to work there! 

After a great lunch, we moved on to Liquid Galaxy. This isn't some sort of weird drug, nor is it melted chocolate; Liquid Galaxy is something much more amazing (and sickening) than either of those things. It is, in essence, a multi-screen version of Google-maps, where you can go anywhere as if you were flying a plane, or walking in the streets or mountains anywhere in the world. It's absolutely amazing, but after some time of badly using the gear stick, I have to admit, I felt a little travel sick. 

Even some of the buildings were 3D and you could go inside them - although that requires a particular skill of precision that I do not own. Such a great day :)

Starbucks Gingerbread Latte for cheap

I must be one of the only people I know who doesn't like coffee. I love the smell of it, but it's the strong bitter taste that I can't quite hack. Having said that, I do like Starbucks. I'm sure I have enraged many coffee-junkies by saying that, but I actually think it's quite good coffee. The festive drinks that come out every winter to notify me that it is cold outside and I should get to my nearest Starbucks asap so get a Gingerbread Latte, my personal fave. They are so addictive though, and I do find myself wanting one all the time while I can, but it gets a bit expensive.

In my first year of uni, I discovered that Whittard sell the gingerbread syrup, along with a few other flavours, which costs about £4.50 and lasts ages. I just added a few teaspoons of it to an instant latte mix and it was done! I know it sounds awful, but it's not at all, surprisingly. Also, I'm a student - I'm not exactly going to buy myself an enormously over-priced coffee machine now, am I? And also, I would never know how to use it.

I read a recipe online of how other people make theirs, and one girl said she added some instant coffee to some steamed milk with cinnamon and nutmeg in it, instead of the syrup, which I think might be quite successful too.

Now you get to make it in the warmth of your own home, whilst saving yourself a few quid and cheering yourself up on the most gloomy month of the year. Have a go and let me know what you think!

One Man, Two Guvnors

This play, starring James Corden, is amazing, and I'm so grateful my mother decided my sister and I needed another Christmas present this year. She had already seen it last summer, before it moved to the Adelphi Theatre on The Strand, but thought I would really enjoy it. And I definitely did.

I have to admit, I never was a great fan of James Corden: I never watched Gavin and Stacey, and that sketch he did for Comic relief a year or two back wasn't all that funny. But in this play, I couldn't wait for him to come back on stage for his next scene. The play is based on an 18th-century Italian comedy The Servant of Two Masters by a guy called Carlo Goldini, but updated to a 1960's Brighton scene. The story, as the title quite obviously suggests, is about a guy (Francis Henshall, played by James Corden) who has two bosses. But what he doesn't know is that the two bosses are actually a couple. (You find that out pretty early in the show, so I haven't given anything away for you, don't worry!) He spends the majority of the play trying to not let each boss find out about the other, (the rest of which he falls in love with a hussy and tries to find something he can eat) with a series hilarious slapstick events, which had me continuously laughing until my stomach hurt. At the beginning I found I was trying to keep my laughter back a bit, in fear of laughing too loud - coming from me, making any noise when I laugh is a big deal. I am a victim of silent hilarity. But, genuinely, after about 4 minutes in to the play, dignity was no longer an issue. The woman sitting next to me was cackling - actually cackling - and my mum was in tears.

The best thing about the show was how they managed to 'break the fourth wall', not just by talking to the audience, letting them know the characters thoughts that he says out loud and that somehow the other characters don;t hear, but via James Corden's amazing ad lib-ing. If you've heard about this play before, you will almost certainly have heard about the sandwich scene: James Corden sits on the bench on stage alone and asks, to no-one in particular, "Has anyone got a sandwich?... Seriously" to which a paying member of the audience shouts back "I do!" Everyone laughs, blah blah blah, we all think it's a set up, blah blah blah, James Corden replies with "What kind of sandwich you got?" "Chicken and Bacon" etc. Because most people, by now, who are going to see this play have heard of this scene, they think it's set up. But, actually it isn't. Corden then tries again, "Has anyone got a sandwich?... Seriously" and yet another guy from the crowd shouts out "I do!" And it goes on. It's such a brilliant scene, because even Corden didn't manage to keep his cool - he went bright pink laughing, and ad lib-ing the scene completely, even jokingly accusing the audience of ruining the whole segment of the play with their inability to understand he wasn't actually talking to them. "His script is a bang-on-the-money mixture of wisecracks, sight gags, and fiendish moments of audience participation. The jokes and verbal sallies just keep on coming."

The entire performance was like a pantomime, but a mildly X-rated, and historically correct version. And, having read quite a few reviews on the play, it seems each performance is different; "And it is precisely that air of spontaneity that keeps the show fresh." I would recommend it to anyone and everyone who has a sense of humour, but actually it won't be in theatres for much longer, and I believe, if not all, the majority of tickets have been sold. but trying calling the Box Office anyway (0844 412 4651 is the number). I don't normally like going to the theatre, but this has been one of very few performances that i have loved from before it even started (when a live rock'n'roll 60's-style band play live music on stage, and keep reappearing between scenes throughout the play) to the very end (when I was desperate to pee).

She's coming home, she's coming home, she's coming

Back in Landaan Taan! Well, I have been for about 24 hours, but I was too knackered yesterday to bother typing. Just to continue where I left off from my last post in Cairo, the events of the day before yesterday.

My sister-in-law drove us to the Khan el-Khalili (refer back to my first post on my Cairo adventure if you do not understand my lingo) so we could get a few things before we left the next day. On the way, we drive past an Armoured Personel Carrier (I thought it was a tank, but I stand correct. I'm clearly not a 13 year old boy) and my sister decided to show the army what she thought of them, by hooting (standard Egyptian), winding down her window, and proceeding to spit on their tank. I was amazed. This girl is brilliant. There is no chance I would ever spit within 100miles of someone who had a gun and was traveling in a vast vehicle. Is it just me? But I had so much respect for her still, because she is dedicated to changing her country and, most of all, making Egypt a nicer place for her daughter to grow up in. Like she says, there may have been times when she wasn't there for her daughter, but once her and her revolutionary  friends end this whole thing and prove their point, she will be able to tell her daughter the stories.

The next day we all got up at some ungodly hour to catch an 8am plane - I don't do mornings. On the plane I watched What's Your Number, that film with the girl who had Monica and Chandler's baby in Friends, and the dumb one from Scary Movie. It was fine. I feel quite indifferent to it, cos it's SO obvious from minute 4 what is going to happen. When it finished I flicked through the channels and found some documentary/film/sketch show (I have no idea what it was). The only thing I heard before I switched channels was a guy saying

"Blogging is not writing. It's graffiti with punctuation."

 Hmmm, I get what he's trying to say. How writers think long and hard about how to structure a sentence, a paragraph, having to re-write it a thousand times etc, whereas it's assumed bloggers don'tt. Blogging may just look like a few hundred words typed up quickly about someone's thoughts or a random thing they have found (sounds familiar). But blogging can, for some people, be a starting point to a dream career, one that they are not sure how to approach the normal way. Or it could be a way of promoting something - a product that a company offers and wishes to advertise. It can be used for loads of things, so sometimes it's not just a matter of bashing out 500 words and then carelessly clicking 'Post'. Sometimes it does have to be as perfect as a page from a book. Graffiti can be compared to it though, because of the meanings behind words or short sentences. I remember in school being taught the impact of short sentences, used to emphasize a point and generate a particular emotion in the reader depending on it's tone. That's graffiti; and blogging can be used similarly. Anyway this quote just got me thinking.

The rest of the journey was h o r r i b l e ! As we approached England, our plane was being thrown side to side, and appeared to be attached to a roller-coaster, the amount it was rising and dropping. My stomach only just held out - had we been on that plane 3 or 4 minutes longer there is no doubt when I say everything from the last 2 weeks would have come up. And that would have been a shame - I like Egyptian food. It turned out it was VERY windy in England yesterday and there was a thick black cloud covering Heathrow Airport. WUNDERBAR.

So, like I said, I'm home! I've opened the last of the presents we couldn't fit in our suitcase to Egypt, cuddled the cat to death and, apart from these things, done sweet eff all!

New Years Revolution

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

So we are back in Cairo now, and we have to be quite quiet because the mini person (being my little shnookums adorweebull niece) is sleeping. We spent New Years in the desert, in a place called Al Fayoum, staying with some of my mums friends, who have the most amazing houses out there. They are all made of a golden sandstone, which, practically glows in the orangey sunset light. That's my favourite time of day. I love it anywhere, but in the desert, where everything is gold- and sand-coloured already, it looks amazing. The roofs of all the houses are dome-shaped - not like one massive dome, but mini domes over each separate room. And, for a bit of extra cash, you can get coloured glass bottles cemented into the domes, so when the sun shines through, the roof becomes a coloured disco ball, like in clubs from the 70's. There are also stairs which take you up onto the roof, where, normally, there are in-built tables and benches, so you can just casually have your lunch or afternoon mint tea up there. I've decided buying one of those houses will be my New Years Resolution...not this year though, but one day!

It turns out they did have wifi in the desert, but due to constant excessive amounts of work, it was not fully take advantage of, and I did not get to update my blog for you all. I apologize profusely!

My friend Sophie asked me if I could see the pyramids from where we were, which made me chuckle. (Things she says has that effect on people) You see, for those who are not aware like my dear friend, Egypt isn't just one vast area of desert land, which a couple of houses scattered amongst the sand and the camels. It's actually a rather normal city. More dusty than others, perhaps; and with an incredible amount of unfinished houses still under construction, yes; but still quite normal, considering.

Our New Years weekend consisted of food, sleep, a quick desert trip, food, a short walk here and there, sleep, food, drink and food. Successful, in other words. Here are some of my photos of my trip (I'll update this post when internet is a bit faster!) xx

Pomegranate!

The domed roofs

View from the roof

Breakfast, would you believe

Desert walk

So 2012! Wow. I hope it's not as crap as the film (which-I-havn't-seen-but-I-hear-it's-not-good). Maybe this will be the year the Egyptian Revolution stops?